1970-nyondae Kinunggong yangsong kwa Asan Chung Ju-Young (Skilled Workers' Training in the 1970s and Asan Chung Ju-Young)

This chapter analyses South Koreas first generation of skilled workers training programs during the 1970s. Focusing on two main channels of skills training, namely, technical high schools and public and in-plant vocational training, this chapter discusses how Korean big firms, especially Hyundai Industries and their founding-chairman Chong Ju-Young, played a leading role in skilled workers training and vocational education. It argues that the success of South Koreas mass production of skilled workers during the 1970s was due largely to the states heavy and chemical industrialization policy by which the state succeeded in implementing radical reforms in the education system on the one hand and the mobilization of the business community, especially big firms, to actively sponsor vocational training as well as investing in technological education on the other.