A Study on the Higher Education Professional Degree System

A Study on the Higher Education Professional Degree System

Tae-Joune Park, Hui Jung Chu, Seo Young Sok, Gang Ju Lee

In the Korean higher education, degrees themselves are not considered an effective nor meaningful means for employment, although some great emphasis has been placed on academic-industrial cooperation and vocational education. The vocational education for employment is largely limited to the programs offered in specialized high schools and junior colleges. At the level of bachelor degrees and above, higher education does not have any explicit or systematic recognition of vocational education, thus failing to develop vocational or professional degrees in distinction from traditional academic degrees. In these circumstances, where laws and regulations concerning vocational education are not properly provided, individual universities are helplessly left with the highly challenging task of a successful transition from higher education to the labor market.

It is the business of this research to lay foundation for the establishment of ‘higher education professional degree system' in Korea that enables a smooth transition from higher education to the labor market. For this purpose, this research conducts the international comparative study of five nations (Korea, the UK, the US, France, and Japan), which consists of a simple comparison and an in-depth comparison of the five nations. Seven categories are examined for basic comparison; (1)higher education system, (2)laws concerning higher education degrees, (3)national qualifications system, (4)academic degrees and professional degrees, (5)conditions for professional degrees, (6)quality control system of professional degrees, (7)recent policies concerning professional degrees. And, under the seven categories fifteen items are developed for the detail comparison.

For the in-depth comparison which intends to give a systematic explanation of the main differences among the professional degrees systems of the five nations, three levels of analysis (surface, middle, foundation level) are suggested. The surface level analysis is concerned with the extent to which a higher education system is oriented towards traditional academic degrees

programs or professional degrees programs. The middle level analysis is about the overarching aim of higher education, the proposition of private higher education institutions to public ones, market-orientedness of higher education, youth unemployment, professionalization policy, market values of professional degrees, social trust in professional degrees, internalization, and so forth.

And at the foundation level, the analysis focuses on two factors that subtlely yet significantly result in a distinctive higher education system of a nation. It is shown that each nation's higher education system has been developed in its own way, depending both on different modes of family system open to the young people who have begun studies at higher education institutions, and on different modes of social security system.

The comparison helps identify two contrasting models of higher education professional degrees system, which can be found typically in France and the US. The French model fully acknowledges the social and market values of professional degrees and thus systematically arranges professional degrees programs for all levels of higher education, whereas in the American model professional degrees themselves are not greatly valued and required in the market. These two models are taken as two possible scenarios for the development of the Korean higher education system, and three steps to go through are provided to acquire completion of what is suggested in each scenario.