In response to the continuously developing requirements for specialization in the interior design field, the Design Engineer class 1 and 2 Certificate qualification system was developed in 1991, substantiating personal capacity in planning, designing,...
In response to the continuously developing requirements for specialization in the interior design field, the Design Engineer class 1 and 2 Certificate qualification system was developed in 1991, substantiating personal capacity in planning, designing, construction and finishing relating to interior design.
Through the nationally controlled system of interior design qualification, the government has implemented a training and supply system that lacks the capacity to effectively identify trends in nomenclature, and requirements of specific skills such as color representation at the construction site, resulting in a lack of responsiveness to supply and demand. While the interior design industry is continuously becoming discriminative and demanding to higher skills, the qualification system has not seen much change to meet these higher demands. This reflects that lack of analysis and discussion being carried out in the educational scene and is evidence that the qualification system requires an overhaul to better respond to the rapidly changing societal and technological trends.
In order to design a qualification system that meets the demands of the industry, we must accurately identify the exact requirements in terms of knowledge and skills that are required at the construction site. Also, because the subject will be working at the construction site, the examination process must be evaluated so that its contents effectively inspect the subject's capacity in real-life skills.
The purpose of this study is to identify the shortages of the current interior designer qualification and examination process and suggest an effective methodology of improving the process. The analyses are performed through comparisons with examples of other foreign countries as well as results from polls conducted with practitioners in the profession.
This study first categorizes and identifies the various classes of qualification, then compares the domestic qualification process with those of other countries. As a result, the following conclusions were reached:
1. In order to develop a reliable system of interior design qualification, efforts must be made at a national level to achieve greater specialization (i.e. planning, design, supervision, construction, etc) of qualification.
2. Based on this improved categorization, more active involvement and interaction of professionals in education, industry and society must be promoted to achieve a higher standard in testing and qualification.
3. Through continuous systematic monitoring of the qualification process a solid database quality testing material must be established to ensure reliable management of testing content (i.e. subject material, industry applicability, evaluation staff, flexibility in expression, prior notification of hands-on subject matter, background descriptions of diagrams, passing rates, etc).
4. Issues such as the separation of interior design and construction related professions, legislation of new qualification levels, commissioning private organizations, implementation of a privately granted interior designer qualification are all sensitive issues which require close coordination and review by professionals of various levels of society, government organizations, the Human Resources Development Service of Korea, educational circles and the interior design industry.