As the vocational education in Korea’s secondary education curriculum, which had been the driving force of economic progress of Korea, nowadays is keeping aloof from the changes of times, causing many losses both economically and socially. Conseque...
As the vocational education in Korea’s secondary education curriculum, which had been the driving force of economic progress of Korea, nowadays is keeping aloof from the changes of times, causing many losses both economically and socially. Consequently, Korean government has felt a need to immediately incorporate the demands from fast-changing industrial environments into the vocational education in the curriculum, and NCS has emerged as the key tool for the very changes in education and society.
NCS stands for National Competency Standards—it serves as job descriptions compiled and offered at the national level, which summarize knowledge and competency required for each occupational category in all industry settings.
Many countries have developed their own NCS, and are currently implementing it. Since 2002, Korea has been developing its own NCS, led by the government. And the government has announced that starting from the first semester of academic year 2016, the NCS-based curriculum will be adopted and implemented in specialized high schools that serve as vocational institutes for the secondary education curriculum.
Accordingly, this study intends to begin with analyzing the current operating status and curriculum of clothing-related majors offered in specialized high schools in order to be used as a fundamental material for further studies aiming to help NCS to be successfully incorporated into vocational education, especially into the clothing-related majors.
And through the above attempt, this study aims to aid in the curriculum restructuring for clothing-related majors in specialized high schools, and aims further to provide a fundamental material which is expected to be helpful in setting up the paths for vocational education.
First of all, a list of specialized high schools offering clothing-related major has been found on a portal for specialized high schools and meister high schools, and sixteen clothing-related majors, as of latter half of 2014, have been confirmed to be offered in thirteen schools in total. The current status of the clothing-related majors is as follows:
First, the majors are named as Global Fashion, Multi-fashion Design, Clothing, Clothing Design, Clothing Arts, Clothing and Fashion Design, Fashion Design, Fashion and Textile Design, Fashion Business, Fashion and Product Design, etc., and there are a total of 2,292 students in 83 classes.
Second, the majors, by their educational categories, differ in prerequisite subjects, and thus the schools have different educational goals and various curricular contents. This inconsistency, consequently, is not contributing to cultivating professionals with certain qualifications through professional education.
Third, the scarcity of teachers for clothing majors has been found. As of 2013, there are 60 teachers for clothing majors throughout the country. This connotes that a teacher teaches an average of 38.2 students, which is generally regarded as a factor behind the degradation of the quality of education considering that vocational education is characterized by its numerous sessions of experiments and hands-on training.
Fourth, it turned out that the majority of students in specialized high schools prefer going to college, for the students’ career goals, in reality, are unlikely to be realized at the vocational education level offered in the secondary education curriculum—and this deviates from the purpose of establishment of specialized high schools.
Here are the changes expected in case of adopting the NCS-based curriculum on clothing-related majors in specialized high schools:
First, as the classes based on NCS competency units, which reflect the demands from industrial settings, are to be conducted in the curriculum, systematic and phased education and training for nurturing professional workforce can be possible.
Second, with the adoption of competency and qualification system which are evaluated by whether the performance expectations of NCS’s competency units have been achieved, objective evaluations on students’ performance will be feasible, which will improve students’ reliability on the teachers’ evaluations.
Third, NCS’s competency units can enhance skills required by industrial settings, by which may help students have better adaptability on the spot when they get employed in the same occupations that they have sought to.
Based on the forementioned research and analysis, the suggestions for firmly established NCS-based curriculum of clothing-related majors in specialized high schools are as follows:
First, actions should be taken to improve teachers’ professionalism. For teachers as careers masters have inadequate working experience, solutions for improving teachers’ professional skills are to be sought in teacher training courses. In addition, on-the-spot training should be conducted in the industries and professional training institutions concerned to improve in-service teachers’ professionalism.
Second, as a measure to make up for scarce teachers, adjunct teachers from industry-academia partnership should extensively be assigned to schools. And it should be ensure that school education takes active actions to changes in industrial settings by getting professionals from industrial fields involved in the curriculum of specialized schools.
Third, Work-First-and-Study-Later programs needs complementary measures and improvements. The government is now putting efforts to work out frameworks of the continuing education and to increase students’ employment rate through the programs. However, the currently ongoing Work-First-and-Study-Later programs related to clothing majors do not meet students’ expectations in terms of school evaluations, locations of schools, and curriculum, and so forth.
Fourth, schools need to strengthen ties with industries. Specialized high schools have the cultivation of industrial manpower as their object. They, accordingly, are obligated to provide their students with opportunities to grow into competent industrial manpower through having hands-on experience from internships at companies for a certain period of time. This should be done in a way that it helps students with their career choices by giving students self-confidence in their own competency and by making them overcome the fear of employment.
Although specialized high schools are intended to cultivate industrial manpower, what matters in clothing-related majors is that the career choices of their students cannot be solved solely by the vocational education offered in specialized high schools. It is consequently hoped that the NCS-based curriculum will be firmly established in the clothing-related majors after the shortcomings of the current curriculum have been complemented and improved.