Quest for building world-class universities in South Korea: outcomes and consequences

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to provide an overview of the Korean government's policies for building world class universities (WCUs) and their implications for Korean higher education institutions. Primarily through an extensive literature review, but also through a discussion of field interviews and the experiences of one of the authors as a public official in education policy making, this study examines the Korean government's policies to establish WCUs, as well as the outcomes and consequences of these policies. Using the framework suggested by Salmi (The challenge of establishing world-class universities. The World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009), the study seeks to answer the following research questions: (a) What policies has the Korean government implemented to build WCUs since the late 1990s? (b) How has the government's quest to build WCUs transformed the Korean higher education system? Specifically, how have HEIs in Korea responded to the policies implemented? (c) What issues and challenges has the Korean higher education system confronted in its quest to build WCUs?.