고교단계 직업교육 경로의 유연성 제고 방안

Abstract

본 연구에서는 고교 단계의 직업교육 경로를 유연화하여 충분한 직업교육 기회를 보장함으로써 고등학생의 요구나 수준에 부응하는 직업교육 학습경로를 형성하는 방안을 모색하는데 목적을 두고 있다. 이를 위하여 고교 직업교육 경로 유연성의 의미를 분석하고, 고교 단계에서의 직업교육과 관련한 요구를 파악하며, 이와 관련한 국내외 현황 및 사례를 분석하고, 이를 토대로 고교 단계 직업교육 유연성 제고를 위한 정책 방안을 제안하고자 한다.

The vocational education opportunities should be equally provided to all people. This is one of the central concepts in this research. The research goal of this study was to seek policy measures for increasing flexibility of pathway in vocational education in order to secure enough vocational education opportunities and develop vocational learning pathways to meet educational needs of high school students. For these objectives, this study used several methodologies of literature review, survey with general and vocational high school students, delphi techniques with specialists in vocational education, and discussion with some professionals and practitioners. In this research, ‘flexible pathway in vocational education’ is defined as the supporting system in which vocational education opportunities are offered to develop individualized learning pathways with accordance to learners' needs, levels, or learning pace, etc. With this meaning, flexible pathway in vocational education could be interpreted differently between in general high schools and in vocational high schools.

1. Needs for Flexible Pathway in Vocational Education

The results of surveying with general and vocational high school students give us an important clue for flexible pathway in vocational education. Main results were as follows: First, 74.1% of general high school respondents showed that they wished to participate in vocational education programs while they were in high schools. Needs for assistance in their career decision-making is one of the main reasons why many general high school students wanted to participate in vocational education programs. Because of this necessity of career guidance, lower grade students had higher needs of participating in vocational education programs than higher grade students. This result showed that schools should make efforts to give more usefulness and instrumentation to their students' career development. Second, 26.1% of vocational high school respondents showed that they were not satisfied with their departments or majors. 45.5% of respondents wanted to change their departments or majors somehow or other. One of significant results was that entrance motives gave an important effects to satisfaction with majors. Students who considered their aptitudes, not their middle school records, were more satisfied with their majors. These results give some suggestions that various types of vocational education programs should be planned and managed to meet various educational needs of general/vocational high school students. Through these education programs, students should be able to make their flexible vocational education pathways. The experts of our delphi analysis showed high level of agreement in necessity and importance of flexibility in secondary vocational education. Also, they responded various measures for the flexibility in secondary vocational education. These results of delphi analysis were used as the important materials for making policy suggestions in this research.

2. Conclusions and Policy Suggestions

Flexible pathways in vocational education have several characteristics: (1) individualization of learning, (2) modularization in vocational education curriculum, (3) flexible mobility between general and vocational sector, (4) vocationalization in general education or strengthening vocational education. In addition, these individualized flexible pathways require several infrastructures: (1) career and academic counseling systems, (2) autonomy and responsibility in each school, (3) strengthening management of demand-supply in teacher manpower, and (4) systemization of vocational learning resources in community. Through the flexible pathways with these characteristics, learners are expected to build several types of vocational education paths such as (1) work preparation paths, (2) career exploration and self-development paths, and (3) alternative vocational education paths. For the flexible pathways in vocational education, this research gives several policy suggestions based on the results of this research: First, as the short-term countermeasure, vocational course in general high schools should be normalized with (1) diversifying the types of educational institutions that manage vocational courses for general high school students, (2) diversifying subjects (e.g., giving vocational courses to 1st and 2nd grade students, as well as 3rd grade students) and types of programs (e.g., establishing vocational courses for vocational exploration, school adjustment, et al., in addition with work preparation. Second, related regulation should be alleviated for greater mobility between general and vocational high schools. Examples are as follows: (1) establishing special programs for supplement of learning deficits of transfer students, (2) alleviating graduation requirements for transfer students, and (3) introducing the systems assessing and recognizing out-of-school learning experiences. Third, national curriculum should be revised for the vocationalization in general high schools. Examples are (1) extending vocational-related subjects in curriculum, (2) exploring possibility of modularization in general and vocational subjects, and so on. Fourth, related infrastructures should be strengthened for the individualized flexible pathways in vocational education.