The evaluation of vocational training in Korea was initiated by the government in 1998. It was undertaken in order to enhance the quality of training with the proliferation of training institutions for the re-employment training of unemployed workers and with the opening of the training market. In particular, the evaluation system is currently being utilized as a method of assessing the management of re-employment training carried out in over 1000 institutions. It is also needed to identify training courses of higher quality for a differentiated distribution of financial support in terms of training quality.
The Ministry of Education's evaluation of vocational training in 1998 and 1999 took place in the colleges that implemented training for unemployed workers. The Ministry of Information and Communication also carried out an evaluation of its investments in vocational training--in the shape of financial support for colleges. In addition, local administrative offices have recently begun evaluating vocational training that it delegates to other institutions. Under the Workers' Vocational Training Promotion Act, local administrations have set aside budgets for vocational training evaluation and commissioned the evaluation project to a suitable organization since 1999. Because vocational training evaluation is carried out by various institutions, problems of inconsistency arise form the fact that each evaluative criteria and standards differ. Despite such difficulties, however, efforts are made to remedy the revealed shortcomings, and the significance of evaluation is gaining more salience.
Measures to alleviate some of the dysfunctional aspects of managing vocational training evaluation are found in case studies of systematic evaluation projects in other countries. Based on these lessons, government policies to systematize vocational training evaluation in Korea are strongly recommended in order to improve the quality of vocational training. The evaluation system may also be used for basic material for policymaking on vocational training. The intended goal is to achieve consistency, credibility, and utility in vocational training evaluation, and also to reduce costs by obviating unnecessarily overlapping evaluation.
In analyzing other systems of vocational training evaluation in comparative case studies, the focus will be on the structure, policy, operation and management procedures, and standards of training evaluation to draw lessons for establishing a training evaluation system at the national level. Such a system of evaluation can provide invaluable material to relevant authorities, and it can also be linked to other policies such as recognition of training credits and national qualification. This study depended mostly on literature review, supplemented by expert panel meetings and overseas visits.
The analytical framework in this study is based on the quality control model, combining the levels of analysis and input-output approaches. Under this framework, vocational training evaluation of the three aspects--policy/management, training institutions and programs, and individual trainees--will be examined. On each of these objects of evaluation, the evaluation system and organization, management, methodology, and applicability will be surveyed and compared to foreign cases.
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