ABSTRACT
President Kim Dae Jung was inaugurated in March 1998. In order to cope with the economic crisis caused by the Asian currency collapse, his government is concentrating on reforming and restructuring the entire national economic system, including higher education. The current government is following the basic structure for higher education reform established under the government of his predecessor, Kim Young Sam, whose Presidential Commission on Educational Reform (PCER) published its report, Recommendations for Educational Reform to Build a New Educational System, on 31 May 1995. The so-called 5.31 reforms put forward in this report were based on the expressed goal of enacting a system of “open education and life-long learning” that emphasizes “learner-centered,” diversified, and autonomous education. The nine general policy goals recommended for education in this report were:
1. Building a basis for “Edutopia” and a life-long education for society;
2. Diversifying the higher education system and making the universities and colleges more specialized;
3. Building a school community for autonomous management of elementary and secondary school systems;
4. Making curriculum to enrich the humanity and creativity of students;
5. Admission policies of colleges and universities that relieve suffering of people;
6. Building a learner-centered, diversified, and autonomous secondary education system;
7. Building an evaluation and support system of education providers; 8. Building a training system to produce teachers who will be
respected and able; and 9. Securing 5 percent of GNP for the education budget by 1998.
