Korea’s higher education sector is very advanced and mature. It grew rapidly in size and quality during the 1980s-1990s, and became a country with 7th largest number of institutions (39) in QS ranking. Korea has also been one of the top sending countries for international students for many years, which is an evidence of the demand for high quality international education. However, Korea has never been a popular partner country for TNE. Although there is no legal restriction on international TNE partnerships, there are relatively smaller number of collaborative TNE programmes in Korea, among which only a small number of programmes are with UK institutions.
However, post-COVID regulatory changes are expected to create more enabling environment for institutional collaboration, especially virtual partnerships. This is reflected in Korean Ministry of Education’s ‘Plan for Innovating Higher Education through Digital,’ announced in September 2020. This plan aims to support post-COVID recovery and innovation of Korea’s higher education sector and includes a plan to ease restriction on virtual collaboration and recognise international joint/dual degree programmes delivered 100% online.
Earlier this year, British Council Korea implemented a scoping research to capture the current snapshot of TNE landscape in Korea and to explore what realistic changes and opportunities are on the horizon for UK-Korea collaboration.
Written by Professor Junhyun Hong at Chung Ang University, a well-known international higher education expert in Korea, this report includes findings from in-depth interviews with 18 universities and the Ministry of Education in Korea. It also includes a unique analysis of the roles of different functional units in Korean HEIs involved in international collaboration as well as an honest insight into the challenges of working with UK partners from Korean institutions’ perspectives.
The full report is available for download as attached.
Please contact Hyunjung Oh, Head of Education and Society, at hyunjung.oh@britishcouncil.org for any questions.