고등교육기관의 전문 학위제도 연구

Abstract

본 연구에서는 우리나라 고등교육 학위 취득자들이 입직교육 후 직업세계로 원활하게 이행하도록 고등직업교육 학위제도를 체계적으로 정비하기 위한 기초 작업을 하고자 하였다. 이를 위한 세부적인 작업은 다음과 같다. 첫째, 우리나라 고등학위제도를 직업교육의 관점에서 조망하고, 둘째, 우리나라 직업학위제도의 문제점을 규명하며, 셋째, 선진 외국의 직업학위제도를 우리나라와 비교하여 시사점을 제시하고, 넷째, 우리나라의 새로운 직업학위제도 구축을 위한 방향을 제시한다.

In the Korean higher education, degrees themselves are not considered an effective and meaningful means to employment, although some great emphasis has been placed on academic-industrial cooperation and vocational education. The vocational education for employment is largely limited to the programs offered in specialized high schools and junior colleges. At the level of bachelor degrees and above, higher education does not have any explicit or systematic recognition of vocational education, thus failing to develop vocational or professional degrees in distinction from traditional academic degrees. In these circumstances in which laws and regulations concerning vocational education are accordingly not properly provided, individual universities are helplessly left with the highly challenging task of a successful transition from higher education to the labor market. It is the business of this research to lay foundation for the establishment of ‘higher education professional degree system’ in Korea that enables a smooth transition from higher education to the labor market. For this purpose, this research conducts the international comparative study of five nations (Korea, the UK, the US, France, and Japan), which consists of a simple comparison and an in-depth comparison of the five nations. Seven categories are prepared for the simple comparison; (1) higher education system, (2) laws concerning higher education degrees, (3) national qualifications system, (4) academic degrees and professional degrees, (5) conditions for professional degrees, (6) quality control system of professional degrees, (7) recent policies concerning professional degrees. And under the seven categories fifteen items are developed for a detail comparison. For the in-depth comparison which intends to give a systematic explanation of the main differences among the professional degrees systems of the five nations, three levels of analysis (surface, middle, foundation levels) are suggested. The surface level analysis is concerned with the extent to which a higher education system is oriented towards traditional academic degrees programs or professional degrees programs. The middle level analysis is about the overarching aim of higher education, the proposition of private higher education institutions to public ones, the market-orientedness of higher education, the youth unemployment, the professionalization policy, the market values of professional degrees, the social trust in professional degrees, the internalization, and so forth. And at the foundation level, the analysis focuses on two factors that subtlely yet significantly result in a distinctive higher education system of a nation. It is shown that each nation’s higher education system has been developed in its own way, depending both on different modes of family system open to the young people who have begun studies at higher education institutions, and on different modes of social security system. The comparison helps identify two contrasting models of higher education professional degrees system, which can be found typically in France and the US. The French model is one that fully acknowledges the social and market values of professional degrees and thus systematically arranges professional degrees programs for the all levels of higher education whereas the American model is one in which professional degrees themselves are not greatly valued and required in the market. These two models are taken as two possible scenarios for the development of the Korean higher education system, and three steps to go through are provided for the completion of what is suggested in each scenario.