Korean government has been calling for the innovation of education and training system to narrow the gap between school education and employers’ requirements and to address the high youth unemployment rate issue.
The Ministry of Employment and Labor and the Human Resources Development Service of Korea introduced the Work-Learning Dual System in 2013.
It was adopted to get rid of mismatches between school education and workplaces based on the National Competency Standards led by companies.
Innovation Summary
Innovation Overview
According to the OECD, Korean youths’ labor force participation rate was low, 42.0% for males and 44.4% for females compared with the OECD average (64.1% for males and 53.0% for females) although they showed the highest level of achievement in the Survey of Adult Skills. Notably, as the proportion of young NEETs is on the uptick, we recommended providing education and training that is more closely relevant to the labor market. Under these circumstances, the Korean government has been strongly calling for the innovation of the national education and training system in order to narrow the gap between school education and employers’ requirements and to address the high youth unemployment rate issue.
The Ministry of Employment and Labor (MOEL) and the Human Resources Development Service of Korea (HRD Korea) introduced the Work-Learning Dual System (WLDS), a Korean apprentice education and training system based on German and Swiss apprenticeship systems, in Korea in 2013. The WLDS is a new vocational education and training (VET) program that closely links vocational training such as learning at school and job skills at workplaces. Korea traditionally has a culture that emphasizes academic achievements, incurring considerable amount of social costs. As young people enter university regardless of their aptitude, and they are bent on improving their resumes in college or university to get good jobs, the time they get out of college and enter into society to get a job is gradually getting later. In addition, companies have to pay enormous re-education cost in order to develop human resources with excellent job skills. This is blamed on problems in VET along with Korea's academic background-oriented culture. The content of current VET was selected by schools, which are the providers of human resources, and current VET focused on curriculums which mismatch demands from industrial fields. There have been mismatches between on-the-job training programs and joint industry-academy programs to take into consideration demands from industrial fields, too. As a result, students were not able to stay at companies after their on-the-job training programs and have to make additional efforts such as new job searches, or advancing into higher level schools. Unlike developed countries, such as Germany, there is a lack of Korean companies’ efforts to develop human resources in the field and are big differences among companies in terms of human resource development infrastructure.
SMEs have problems in human resource management such as unsystematic human resource management and a lack of training infrastructure. Mid-sized companies are interested in training talented people to maintain their technology but they do not have good conditions such as training infrastructure. Large companies have and run their own specialized human resource development programs through their own facilities and instructors. In this context, the Korean government introduced the WLDS to help young people enter the labor market quickly without forming nice academic backgrounds or working hard on improving their resumes and help companies establish human resource development programs. The government tentatively ran the system in 2013 and began to implement the system on a full scale in 2014.
However, the system had many limitations in attracting young people and their parents in the Korean culture that emphasizes education and prefers white color jobs. Through the diversification of training management models, we prepared ways for participation by school education levels and promoted the WLDS by informing the effects of the system through the discovery of various successful cases. Unlike current VET, the system led companies to promote the hiring of young people by hiring them first and letting them both work and learn at the same time. Based on the National Competency Standards (NCS), which systematized work capability units at the national level, training courses required by companies were designed to boost on-site suitability. We prepared a high school model, a technical college model, and a four-year university model by education levels (job training levels), thus establishing various entry routes so that young people could work and learn at the same time when they want. Companies can also make young people participate in training by directly hiring them. We are also striving to spread the system with the participation of private vocational training institutions, universities, the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and Industry Skills Council (ISC) among others.
Innovation Description
What Makes Your Project Innovative?
We provide optimized training courses for companies by having industry experts and companies' core personnel (trainers) participate in the development of training courses and secured the quality of training courses based on the NCS, in order to reflect the requests by the industry. This is a flexible operating model that closely links companies’ business climates with academic calendars. Training programs run in various forms - linear, cyclic, and hybrid - depending on Off-JT and OJT configuration methods. A customized training model for each job level is provided by diversifying entry paths for participating in the WLDS.
We provide integrated solutions for companies’ human resource development by developing training courses and training materials based on jobs in the field for companies, and strongly protect socially weak learning-workers. We have a national support system involving the government including the HRD Korea, private vocational training institutes, universities, etc.
What is the current status of your innovation?
The innovation of Korean VET through the WLDS is now in the full implementation stage. Since 2014, the WLDS has become a brand representing systematic on-the-job training. There is a dramatic increase in the awareness of the WLDS among participating schools, students, parents, and the general public.
“OECD Economic Surveys Korea (2016)” recommended the expansion of the WLDS as a solution to the problem of youth unemployment and the strengthening of a connection between education and employment based on the NCS. In order to improve the performance of young people in the labor market, the OECD has continuously been analyzing policies and cases to support a smooth transition from school to labor market. It can be said that Korea also reemphasized the importance of and necessity of the WLDS. The current WLDS requires the spread of the system to more schools and more companies in order to be established as an innovation program for VET to solve labor market problems in Korea.
Innovation Development
Collaborations & Partnerships
During the task development phase, the vice minister of the MOEL as the chairperson established a WLDS Preparation Committee composed of experts in related departments, economic organizations, labor organizations, and research institutes.
This WLDS is an innovative program introduced through the participation of various stakeholders and the gathering of opinions from companies and the general public, rather than just a system led and designed by the government.
Users, Stakeholders & Beneficiaries
Many institutes are participating WLDS, and universities and training institutions participate as joint training centers. The key personnel of the companies are involved in the development of their training courses.
Through the operation of WLDS, ①young people can adapt to the field early and work in good jobs; ②companies can contribute to increase of productivity by cultivating skilled people with their own initiative; and ③government can enhance youth employment and national competitiveness.
Innovation Reflections
Results, Outcomes & Impacts
In a short period, the system became a representative on-the-job training system with over 13,000 companies and 70,000 learning workers. According to a study in 2016, it is expected that in 2018 NCS-based systematic training through the WLDS will save Korean companies KRW 2,300,000 in reeducation and recruitment cost, up from KRW 2,080,000 in 2016. The per capita productivity of learning workers in 2016 was KRW 19.82 million, which was 42% higher than KRW 13.94 million of workers at companies who that did not participate in the WLDS. In 2020, the gap is expected to exceed KRW 10 million.
These innovation efforts raised Korean people’s recognition of the WLDS by pushing up the public awareness of the WLDS to 65.5% in 2016 from 30.5% in 2015, the early period of the system in Korea, according to a survey on the system. The WLDS is expected to contribute to boosting Korea’s adjustability to rapid social, industrial and technological changes and solving mismatch problems in labor market.
Challenges and Failures
The biggest challenge for this innovation was the deep-rooted academic background-oriented culture in Korea. We improved access for young people so that they can participate in the WLDS by diversifying their participation paths by preparing the system for each school in order to encourage young people to take part in apprenticeship training to learn job skills required by companies in a situation where young people got jobs late and social burdens expanded in spite of a lack of labor force in the labor market. In addition, we let them enjoy both their jobs and training as workers via labor contracts at the start of their training programs.
The purpose is to lay the groundwork for young people to overcome prejudice over academic backgrounds and grow into skilled workers through the innovation and help companies to develop necessary human resources effectively.
Conditions for Success
A right understanding of problems and collaboration with various stakeholders hold the key to the success of the WLDS. We diagnosed that not academic backgrounds but practical VET was needed in order to improve the Korean culture that emphasizes academic backgrounds, address the youth unemployment problem, and boost companies’ employment vitality, to which ministries of the government and the industrial world agreed on. This made the innovation possible.
In addition, we carried out the innovation to enable students to receive school education and job education simultaneously by leading schools to insert training courses of the WLDS in curriculums, and spread and established the system through collaboration with private VET institutions and the industrial world.
Replication
Demographic changes in Korea such as a decrease in the Korean population after rapid economic growth, an economic recession and a drop in the youth employment rate is making it difficult for Korean companies to secure necessary human resources. To resolve these difficulties, Korean government is constantly striving to boost youth employment and help companies secure excellent human resources through the innovation of VET.
Newly emerging Asian countries are also experiencing situations similar to that of Korea. They achieved rapid economic growth based on strong passion to study in the parents' generation and abundant human resources. However, companies’ situations are changing very fast, so VET must respond to demands from the industrial world. Therefore, we are expecting that Korea will be able to spread the results of the WLDS to emerging countries in Asia that have national emotions and industrial structures similar to those of Korea as a nation carrying out VET innovation.
Lessons Learned
We adopted the WLDS as a solution to resolve the problems of the complex labor market in Korea, which should actively cope with rapid changes in industry and technology, along with the resolution of Korea’s youth employment rate lower than the OECD average and mismatches between education and training and demands from companies. As recommended in “OECD Economic Surveys Korea (2016)”, we feel that the WLDS was the best choice for enhancing the utilization of Korean human resources and mitigating mismatches between school education and demands from the labor market, and confirmed growth potential of apprenticeship training that suits situations in Korea through the achievements of learning workers and companies which took part in the WLDS.
In the early days of the introduction of the WLDS, the participation of young people and companies was low due to doubts about the unfamiliar new system and inexperience in it. However, the system has grown into a representative brand of training in the field in Korea through collaboration with stakeholders, continuous system improvements and the spread of successful cases.
The innovation of VET in Korea via the WLDS sparked off the change of the subject of job education and training from schools (suppliers) to companies (users) and enabled work and learning to be practically connected. Companies boosted their productivity by selecting and nurturing skilled talent based on field training and practical experience and inducing long service through the growth of the WLDS. Students became able to have more interest in studying through practical field education and select jobs that suit their aptitudes. It is our ultimate goal to transform Korea's academic background-oriented culture into a culture that emphasizes ability via the WLDS. We will continue to innovate in order to enable schools and companies to run the WLDS on their own without the government’s interventions.
Anything Else?
1) Status of Work-Learning Dual System as of July 31, 2018.
- (Participating companies) 12,822 companies
- (Learning-workers) 10,567 companies employed and trained 70,014 learning-workers
2) Status of participating companies as of July 31, 2018.
- (Status by size) 95.8% of the participating companies were SMEs with less than 300 employees
- (Status by Business Types) Machinery and Robots: 31.1% > Electricity and Electronics: 13.8% > IT: 12.4%
3) Status of learning workers
- (Status by educational backgrounds) 52.0% of the learning-workers received high school education or lower.
- (Status by ages) 20s: 45.2% > Teens: 30.2% > 30s: 15.5%
* Males: 52,942 (75.6%), females: 17,072 (24.4%)
* Young people (15 to 34 years old): 59,901 (85.6%)
- (Status by training periods) Average training period: 16 months (12 months: 46,889 workers, 67.0%)
Status:
- Implementation - making the innovation happen
Innovation provided by:
Files:
Date Published:
25 January 2014