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NG Pak Tee [National Institute of Education (NIE), Nanyang Technological University (NTU)] is a Singaporean educator who is deeply involved in the development of school and teacher leaders. He considers it a privilege to be able to educate a fraternity of students who are educators themselves and who build others through their leadership, work and lives. He encourages educators to walk a path not easily travelled, with love, courage and resilience.

Pak Tee began his career as a Mathematics teacher after reading the discipline in Cambridge University under a scholarship he gratefully received from his country. He served a stint as a Ministry of Education (MOE) officer before joining the NIE as an academic. At the NIE, he has previously served as Associate Dean Leadership Learning and Head of the Policy and Leadership Studies Academic Group. His main work is in education change and leadership.

Pak Tee has authored/co-authored over a hundred publications. International media often seek his views on education change. He has served as the executive editor/co-editor/editorial adviser of a few international refereed journals and is currently an editorial board member of more than ten journals. He is the co-editor of the Routledge Leading Change book series. One of his books, "Learning from Singapore: The Power of Paradoxes", is a Routledge best-seller.

Pak Tee has been invited to speak at many events around the world, for example, Google Global Education Symposium, Yidan Prize Summit, International Baccalaureate Global Conference, and Harvard University Graduate School of Education's Global Education Innovation Initiative Conference. He is currently a member of Scotland's International Council of Education Advisers and a Life Member of Clare Hall, Cambridge University.

Pak Tee has been conferred awards such as the National Day Award of Public Administration Medal (Bronze) for merit and service to education; and the Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Asia Pacific Educational Research Association. He has also won various teaching awards and has been conferred a Fellow of NTU Teaching Excellence Academy. However, his greater reward is a fraternity of students who pay it forward through their contribution and commitment to education.

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NG Pak Tee [National Institute of Education (NIE), Nanyang Technological University (NTU)] is a Singaporean educator who is deeply involved in the development of school and teacher leaders. He considers it a privilege to be able to educate a fraternity of students who are educators themselves and who build others through their leadership, work and lives.

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SLF 2019 Education change and leadership, Pak Tee Ng

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SLF 2019 Education change and leadership, Pak Tee Ng

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"To us, human resource is the most important and we invest a lot in education."

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Building the Workforce of Tomorrow: A Shared Responsibility

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Building the Workforce of Tomorrow: A Shared Responsibility

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Letter to the Premier

Dear Premier Wynne,

On behalf of The Premier's Highly Skilled Workforce Expert Panel, I am pleased to submit our strategy report and recommendations. It is our hope that this report will serve as a guide for actions that, upon implementation, will help to grow the highly skilled workforce, and will strengthen Ontario's economic prospects. We also hope that this report will assist in highlighting the good work that organizations and communities are already undertaking in this regard.

Our Panel recognizes our mandate as important and timely. The issues identified in this report are not necessarily new, but demographic and technological change add a real urgency. Action is required now so that the transforming Ontario economy can maximize the opportunities being presented to it.

Over the past months, we have engaged stakeholders and have carefully weighed the ideas, opinions, and advice we have received. We have also considered how our recommendations could be informed by effective public policy, best practice and good research.

Our Panel recognizes that Ontario needs to move beyond established patterns with respect to workforce development. It requires new and collaborative approaches - to support individual talent, innovation, and entrepreneurship and to facilitate new incentives and opportunities. To use a sports analogy, we note that successful coaches actively seek out and recruit talented players. They develop each player's individual strengths and skills, and through discipline and patience, build a team that wins. They also have robust player development strategies that include identifying and providing real playing opportunities for young players through minor league systems. What is Ontario's equivalent for labour force development?

The Panel feels that the recommendations contained in this report are responsive to the needs of Ontario's workforce requirements, and if all partners step up and work together, Ontario will have the human capital it requires to grow and prosper.

Success will require that all partners - employers, educators, labour, communities and governments at all levels - rethink what it means to learn, understand how the workplace is changing, and consider how respective roles and responsibilities must adapt so that our people and our economy can reach full potential.

We thank you for the opportunity to provide advice on this very important subject, and we trust that the government will do its part to ensure the successful implementation of the Panel's recommendations.

Sean Conway, Chair
The Premier's Highly Skilled Workforce Expert Panel

Executive summary

In fall 2015, Ontario appointed five members to The Premier's Highly Skilled Workforce Expert Panel (Panel) - Chair, Sean Conway, and members Dr. Carol Campbell, Robert Hardt, Alison Loat, and Pradeep Sood (see Appendix E: Expert Panel Member Biographies). Panel members were selected based on their professional experience, knowledge of the business climate, and relationships with a cross-section of stakeholder groups, and on their understanding of employers, the education and public sectors, and issues related to the labour market.

The Panel was asked to develop an integrated strategy to help the province's current and future workforce adapt to the demands of a technology-driven knowledge economy - with a goal of doing so by bridging the worlds of skills development, education and training. The Panel was tasked to recommend a clear agenda and key set of directions for government and stakeholders, by August 2016.

During the course of its work, the Panel met with a wide range of interested parties - employers, educators, labour, students, worker representatives, training organizations, and community groups, among others. The Panel attended a number of public meetings including the 2016 Summit on Talent and Skills in the New Economy, held in Oshawa in late January 2016. It also reviewed and considered the latest research on best practices in other jurisdictions in Canada and around the world. The culmination of this work is presented in this final strategy document (report).

The report has been developed based on the premise that Ontario's workforce has long been its strength, but to compete and succeed in a fast-paced economy, Ontario's workforce must be equipped with skills and opportunities that meet all the needs of the jobs of today and tomorrow. The Panel envisions an Ontario economy in which employers understand that human capital is as valuable and necessary to business and productivity growth as other forms of capital. This would also be an economy where entrepreneurship and innovation are encouraged and nurtured.

In the short term, this means that Ontario employers must join their partners in education, labour, government and elsewhere to actively and creatively address regional and sectoral needs in the labour market and better integrate underrepresented groups including older workers, new Canadians, Indigenous peoples, and persons with disabilities, in an economy that is being rapidly transformed by both demographic and technological change.

The Panel has made 28 recommendations in six key themes and two other areas. The government should take a leadership role in implementing the following four recommendations:

1. Establish a Planning and Partnership Table (PPT) chaired by representatives from employers, education and government. This Table would be a formal institutionalized body responsible for producing results in the area of skills development and experiential learning opportunities that contribute to increased linkages to employment and entrepreneurship. The PPT should not be a government-driven body but should be strongly and actively supported by all stakeholders. (Recommendation 1-1)

2. Establish a Workforce Planning and Development Office, in the provincial government, to drive the delivery of the Panel's recommendations and to support the government's role at the Planning and Partnership Table. (Recommendation 1-2)

3. The Ontario government must take a leadership role in developing and making generally available high quality labour market information so that everyone can make better decisions based on timely, relevant, and understandable information. The Panel strongly encourages the Ontario government to use the Forum of Labour Market Ministers to drive this important reform. (Recommendation 2-1)

4. Expanding experiential learning opportunities is critical to success in the area of skills development. Therefore, Ontario should commit to strengthening and expanding experiential learning opportunities across secondary, post-secondary, and adult learning environments. As a first step, Ontario should commit to ensuring that every student has at least one experiential learning opportunity by the end of secondary school (in addition to the existing volunteer requirements) and at least one by the time they graduate from post-secondary education. (Recommendation 3-2)

In the short term, the Panel recommends that priority should be placed on establishing the Planning and Partnership Table, as this group will provide the necessary foundation to support the implementation of the remaining recommendations.

Implementation of these recommendations is a shared responsibility among all parties. These parties must work together to:

1. communicate and be open minded to the possibilities of different ways of learning

2. understand the changing nature of work and

3. rethink traditional roles and responsibilities when it comes to effective and timely labour market development

The Panel feels strongly that effective skills training is also a shared responsibility and that all parties must work together. Everyone involved must understand that communities have a critically important role to play in the design and delivery of effective programs. Successful skills training is a foundational aspect of local economic development and it requires community leadership, community engagement, and sensitivity to local/regional conditions. There is no substitute for strong, credible intermediaries who can focus community attention and support for the important work that must be done in this vital area of public policy. The rapidly changing global economy requires on our meeting this challenge.

Introduction

Today, Ontario operates within a global economic environment that the World Economic Forum has described as the beginning of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Ontario's workforce is diverse and recognized as well credentialed. The percentage of students graduating within five years of starting high school in Grade 9 reached 85.5% in 2015, up from 84.3% in 2014. Ontario Ministry of Education. "High School Graduation Rates". Ontario Newsroom. May 3, 2016. Accessed May 2016. In 2014, 66% of Ontario adults had a post-secondary degree or diploma, more than any member country of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development ( OECD). Ontario Ministry of Finance. Ontario 2016 Budget. 2016. Accessed April 2016.

Developments in previously disjointed fields, such as artificial intelligence, robotics, nanotechnology, 3D printing and genetics, are building on and amplifying one another. Concurrent to this technological revolution is a set of broader socioeconomic, geopolitical and demographic developments with nearly equivalent impacts to the technological factors.The World Economic Forum. The Future of Jobs: Employment, Skills and Workforce Strategy for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. 2016. World Economic Forum
The Future of Jobs, 2016

Yet looking ahead, challenges exist. To compete and succeed in this fast-paced economy, Ontario's workforce must be equipped with skills that meet all the needs of the jobs of today and tomorrow, and with the opportunities to realize their dreams and aspirations. And while educational institutions, employers, intermediaries and governments (federal, provincial, and municipal/local) are all engaged in training and developing Ontario's workers for a wide range of occupations, research also points to gaps that must be bridged and work that must be done to more fully ensure a highly skilled workforce for the future.

The Ontario economy is being rapidly transformed by demographic changes.
Ontario's aging demographics

Intermediaries play important roles in bringing partners together to understand the current and future workforce needs and to facilitate local solutions.

They include organizations such as Ontario Federation of Indigenous Friendship Centres, Chambers of Commerce, workforce planning boards, and non-profit and business organizations. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Promising Practices for Strengthening the Regional STEM Workforce Development Ecosystem (Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. 2016)

The Panel considered the following a starting point for discussion.

Troubling trends in literacy and numeracy

According to the 2012 Program for International Student Assessment, Ontario students performed at the Canadian average and above the OECD average in reading, mathematics and science.Ontario Ministry of Education. Renewed Math Strategy. Ontario Newsroom. April 4, 2016. Accessed April 2016. However, between 2009 and 2013, Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) testing showed a decline in math results ― 4% for Grade 3 students and 7% for Grade 6 studentsIbid.

For 2011-2012, The Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies measured skill competencies in the following areas: literacy, numeracy and problem solving in a technology-rich environment (PS-TRE). Ontario scored above the OECD and Canadian averages in literacy.Statistics Canada. Skills in Canada: First Results from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC). 2013. Page 13. Average numeracy scores for adult Ontarians were slightly above the Canadian average but were below the OECD averageIbid. Page 19.
47%Ibid. Page 17. of Ontarians have literacy scores and 53%Ibid. Page 21. have numeracy scores below Level 3 (identified by Abc Life Literacy as the level required to succeed in a technology-rich environment)Abc Webinar. Canada's Economic and Social Future Depend on Reducing Our Skills Mismatches. April 19, 2016. Presenters: T. Scott Murray, Principal, Data Angel, Janet Lane, Director, Centre for Human Capital Policy, Canada West Foundation.

According to the 2013 Report on the Pan-Canadian Assessment of Science, Reading, and Mathematics, the mean score of Ontario Grade 8 students in scienceThe Pan-Canadian Assessment Program. 2013 Report on the Pan-Canadian Assessment of Science, Reading, and Mathematics. Page 121. and readingIbid. Page 127. was significantly higher than that of Canadian students overall. The results for Ontario Grade 8 student achievement in mathematics were statistically similar to that in Canada overall.Ibid. Page 129.

The Panel heard and read reports that indicated several groups are underrepresented in Ontario's labour market. Not only is this unacceptable in a society as diverse as ours, but Ontario is losing out on the economic and social gains that would be associated with their participation. For example, in a Canadian context, the national economy would experience an estimated gain of $13.4 to $17 billion if individuals with international/interprovincial credentials were better recognized. Michael Grant. Brain Gain 2015: The State of Canada's Learning Recognition System, Ottawa: The Conference Board of Canada. 2016.

In 2015, Ontario's overall unemployment rate for those aged 15 years and older was 6.8%, compared to the following populations: Ministry of Finance, based on data from the Statistics Canada Labour Force Survey, 2015.

11.9% for Indigenous peoples that live off-reserve (includes persons who reported being an Aboriginal person, that is, First Nations, Métis or Inuk [Inuit], or those who reported more than one identity).Ibid. There is strong evidence that official statistics under-report the trends

16% for people with disabilities according to the 2015 Initial Report from the Partnership Council on Employment Opportunities for People with DisabilitiesPartnership Council on Employment Opportunities for People with Disabilities. Initial Report. August 28, 2015. Accessed April 2016.

14.7% for youthStatistics Canada. 2015 Labour Force Survey.

Ontario's Ministry of Finance projects that, over the next 25 years, immigration will account for all population growth in the working age population. 20. Ontario Ministry of Finance. Ontario's Long-Term Report on the Economy. April 2, 2014. Accessed April 2016.

Impact of immigration on working-age population in Ontario

For immigrants aged 25-54, the unemployment rate (at 10.9%) is highest among those who have been in the province less than five years. While 80% of very recent immigrants to Ontario have post-secondary education, only 55% are working in highly skilled jobs.Statistics Canada. Labour force characteristics by immigrant status, by detailed age group. Catalogue number 282-0104 in Statistics Canada [database online]. Ottawa, Ont., 2015. Accessed April 14, 2016.

While 83% of Canadian education providers believe they are developing high-performing graduates, only 34% of employers and 44% of the graduates themselves believe they are prepared for the workforce.McKinsey & Company. Youth in Transition: Bridging Canada's Path from Education to Employment. 2015. McKinsey & Company, 2015

Canadians and Canadian organizations are ill-prepared for economic change

As part of a recent study, Deloitte examined the Canadian economy to better understand whether Canadian companies are prepared for the expected technology-driven disruption. Deloitte surveyed 700 business leaders across Canada. The study found that 35% of Canadian firms surveyed are wholly unprepared for disruption to their industries, and 43% of firms believe they are better prepared than they actually areDeloitte. Age of disruption: Are Canadian firms prepared? 2015. Accessed April 2016.

The Conference Board of Canada found that, in 2009, 31% of adult Canadians aged 25-64 participated in some form of non-formal job-related education. While this is slightly higher than the OECD average (28%), it is well behind leading European countries such as Sweden (61%), Norway (47%), and Finland (44%), as well as the United States (33%)The Conference Board of Canada. Developing Skills: Where Are Canada's Employers? 2014. Accessed April 2016.

Given the rapid pace of change in the economy and the crucial importance of a highly skilled workforce to Ontario's economic future, the Panel recommends focused attention to these issues.

Vision

The Panel recognizes this as an opportunity to develop a shared vision and goals for growing a highly skilled workforce in Ontario, and to provide practical recommendations for the path forward.

During the Panel's engagement, stakeholders wanted to know the definition of a "highly skilled workforce." Some thought this project was about enhancing the profile of the skilled trades; others thought it was about increasing science, technology, engineering and math education and training; while others thought it was about enhancing innovation and entrepreneurship. The Panel feels that it is more useful for the province to focus on the workforce as a whole.

Our highly skilled workforce is diverse and vibrant. It consists of skilled tradespeople and engineers, musicians and artists, entrepreneurs and innovators, scientists and farmers, public servants and health care workers, and those that work in retail and in hospitality, to name but a few.

Our vision for this workforce involves:

people from a young age are aware of all of the opportunities available to them, and they are given the opportunities to develop competencies, and skills, and to have hands-on experiences that allow them to pursue their passion, no matter what pathway they choose to take

people feel empowered to take responsibility for their own educational and career decisions and are committed to developing their own talent and skills at all stages of life and learning

people have a strong foundation in literacy, numeracy, and essential skills, -i.e., the skills individuals need to learn, work and adapt in the ever-changing knowledge-based economy

people display cultural competencies, have a high degree of civic literacy, and respect the diversity of all people in the workplace and

employers value international experiences within their organizations

In order to achieve this vision, employers, educators, training agents, intermediaries, labour, service providers, Indigenous and community organizations must collaborate. Stakeholders must come together and understand the changing nature of the economy, and proactively develop regional and sectoral solutions including plans to develop appropriate skills and related competencies.

To implement this shared vision, it will be important for government to transcend the traditional silos and ensure its programs speak to present and future reality. Success requires that all parties rethink what it means to learn and understand their roles and responsibilities for making sure that individuals are able to fulfill their potential.

Indeed, in a future of rapid technological change and widespread automation, the determining factor - or crippling limit - to innovation, competitiveness and growth is less likely to be the availability of capital than the existence of a skilled work force....Business will increasingly have to work with educators and governments to help education systems keep up with the needs of the labour market. Given rapid change in the skill sets required for many occupations, business must redirect investment to on-the-job training and lifelong learning. Klaus Schwab, "The new key to economic growth is unlocking latent talent," The Globe and Mail, May 14, 2015. Accessed April 2016. Klaus Schwab
Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum

In the short term, success involves:

In the long-term, the Panel envisions an Ontario economy in which employers understand that human capital is as valuable and necessary to business and productivity growth as other forms of capital. Measures of success include:

In our experiences, these things were true of the cities, large or small, that were working best...A standard question we'd ask soon after arrival was "Who makes this town go?" The answers varied widely. Sometimes it was a mayor or a city-council member. Sometimes it was a local business titan or real-estate developer. Sometimes a university president or professor, a civic activist, an artist, a saloon-keeper, a historian, or a radio personality. ...What mattered was that the question had an answer. And the more quickly it was provided, the better shape the town was in.James Fallows, "Eleven Signs a City Will Succeed," The Atlantic. March 2016, accessed April 15, 2016.

Findings of the panel and key themes

As a result of discussions with stakeholders, the Panel has identified six key themes and two areas as crucial to growing a highly skilled workforce. These are based on recurring themes that came up throughout the engagement process. Additional research has validated all six themes as pressing issues.

This section includes ― for each of the six themes ― what is known about the theme (including research, best practices and existing government programs and policies that could be leveraged), the long-term goal, and recommended actions to reach that goal.

The problem the panel addressed

The Panel was encouraged to see several examples of successful and creative partnerships among stakeholders. But the reality is that Ontario must do more to embed these collaborative practices in their normal business activities.

A symptom of working in silos is the "skills gap" discussion that has been ongoing for decades. During engagement, the Panel found that the nature of Ontario's "skills gap" depends on the region or sector being examined, and that no single solution or stakeholder would be able to close this gap. (See Appendix F: Summary of Stakeholders Consulted.)

The "skills gap" is broadly defined as the difference between the skills that employers need, and the skills that are available in prospective employees.

This finding is confirmed in a recent Business Council of Canada ( BCC) (formerly the Canadian Council of Chief Executives) survey of the 90 largest Canadian private-sector employers. It found that large Canadian companies are not facing a comprehensive skills shortage. However, acquiring/developing leaders and specialized talent for critical roles like power engineering, IT security, certain Red Seal trades, mobile software development and engineering is a problem. Therefore for this group of businesses, shortages tend to be concentrated in certain sectors, occupations and regions. Business Council of Canada. Developing Canada's future workforce: a survey of large private-sector employers. 2016. Accessed April 2016.

The Panel recognizes that the province is diverse and that regional approaches are required. It saw and heard of many practices with promising partnerships and structures. However these examples have often not been evaluated to measure their impact and outcomes.

Hamilton Mayor Blue Ribbon Task Force on Workforce Development (Hamilton):

The Task Force was created in 2015 to address the following:

lack of skilled tradespersons for new and expanding employers in Hamilton

aging demographics

strong interest in collaboration throughout the city and

the need to articulate/understand the role of education in workforce initiatives

Created by Mayor Fred Eisenberger, membership consists of local industry, business, labour, education and government leaders. It is chaired by Mohawk College President Ron McKerlie.

The Task Force will submit a formal report to Hamilton City Council in late summer or fall, 2016.
County of Simcoe, Simcoe Muskoka Workforce Development Board (SMWDB), and Employment Ontario Service Providers:
The County of Simcoe and the SMWDB have joined forces to help address local labour issues in the region. These two organizations have already successfully embarked on a number of programs aimed at addressing supply and demand issues in the labour market including Breakfast Simulcasts for employers and a county-wide job posting board ( jobcentralsm.ca). This past February they hosted the first ever On-line Job Fair in Simcoe and Muskoka to connect employers to local job seekers. SMWDB and the County of Simcoe have heard from employers that seeking out the right candidate for postings can be difficult and therefore determined that offering this opportunity would provide a new tool for employers and job seekers to connect. The event connected 2,882 job seekers to more than 80 employers - resulting in approximately 1,800 one-on-one conversations and interviews

"We know the County can play an important role in working with our municipalities and businesses to foster economic prosperity. This partnership is an important step in our renewed commitment to attract investment, support our businesses, create jobs and promote all we have to offer outside our borders," said County of Simcoe Warden Gerry Marshall.

Bombardier, Centennial College, and University of Toronto:

These partners have formed a not-for-profit enterprise, DAIR (Downsview Aerospace Innovation and Research), which is working with a consortium of like-minded academic institutions (including Ryerson University and York University) and industry (Pratt & Whitney, Honeywell, Mda, United Technologies, Safran - Messier Dowty) and other multi-national companies to establish a hub of training, innovation and product development for aerospace in Toronto.

Toronto is currently the second largest hub for aerospace in Canada and Canada is the fifth largest aerospace economy in the world. This activity hopes to augment these rankings.

Forward-looking local initiatives that are making progress in addressing the skills gaps in their regions embody at least one of the following attributes:

1. Multiple employers in the region or industry sectors cooperate with one another and with educational institutions to design and fund initiatives and to train and hire graduates.

2. Classroom education is integrated with opportunities to apply new concepts and skills in actual or simulated work settings - an approach proven to be the way adults learn best.

3. Training focuses on offering workers career pathways, not just skills for the initial job.Thomas A. Kochan, David Finegold, Paul Osterman. "Who Can Fix the "Middle-Skills" Gap?" Harvard Business Review. December 2012, accessed April 18, 2016.

The Panel recognizes that achieving a shared vision for a highly skilled workforce will take time. In the short term, priority should be placed on implementing recommendations 1-1 and 1-2, as these bodies will provide the necessary foundation to support the implementation of the remaining recommendations.

1. Foundational theme: partnerships and local leadership

Growing a highly skilled workforce is everyone's responsibility. This theme recognizes that success will require partnership, communication and collaboration among all parties as they deal with existing realities and anticipate future needs of the workforce.

What we know

In 2016, the Conference Board of Canada released a study stating that partnerships between business and post-secondary institutions help to generate and transfer new knowledge and technology, as well as address the skills and employment needs of students and employersConference Board of Canada. "Six Things to Think About When Starting an Education-Business Partnership." Accessed May 10, 2016.

We need to find ways to connect highly skilled Canadian military veterans and serving reservists to rewarding career opportunities in Ontario communities. Local partnerships are required to tap into this talent, and programs could be created and modeled on existing job matching programs. Stakeholder Feedback

The Business Council of Canada also acknowledged the importance of business and post-secondary institution partnerships. In 2015, it created a Business-Higher Education Roundtable with a membership that includes executives from the private sector, universities, colleges and polytechnicsBusiness Council of Canada. Canada Business/Higher Education Roundtable Members. 2015. Accessed April 2016.

Ontario colleges have shown leadership in developing partnerships with employers. The college system was designed to meet the needs of industry and colleges have many examples of training partnerships with employers who participate on program advisory committees advising on curriculum and labour needs

Multi-sector partnerships currently existing in Ontario could be leveraged to build on relationships and work already underway. These partnerships have often not been evaluated and analyzed to understand key factors for success. As one example, the Ontario Centre for Workforce Innovation (OCWI) is a collaboration led by Ryerson University with participation by Humber College, Collège Boréal, George Brown College and eight other partner organizations. Its purpose is to provide a one-window source of best practices, to drive innovative approaches in employment and training programming, and to address labour market challenges in OntarioGovernment of Ontario. Ontario Launches Centre for Workforce Innovation at Ryerson University. Ontario Newsroom. February 22, 2016. Accessed April 2016.

Elements of a strong partnership:

The benefits to both partners are clearly identified at the outset and are seen to be mutually beneficial and tangible;

The goals of the partnership are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time bound;

Opportunities are created to provide leadership development at the business; and

Research opportunities are created that address business challenges by creating novel solutions to problems.

Colleges Ontario

Discussion on these issues has been ongoing for many years. The Panel has observed that without clear focus and associated accountability for each partner, progress is difficult to achieve. The Panel's recommendations will focus on addressing these two particular issues

The goal is

A shared sense of responsibility and on-going communication among parties that will ensure:

current and future employees have the skills that employers need

employers recognize the importance of investing in the training and development of their employees and

post-secondary institutions become the economic engines of communities through partnerships with employers, educational institutions and intermediaries

Actions to get there

Recommendation 1-1: Establish a Planning and Partnership Table ( PPT) jointly chaired by representatives from employers, education and government. This Table would be a formal, institutionalized body responsible for driving change and developing actionable solutions related to skills, talent development and experiential learning opportunities. This PPT should not be a government-driven body but rather a mechanism in which all partners are invested and action is their primary concern.

Membership would include: employers, students, labour, educational institutions, training agencies, intermediaries, Employment Ontario service providers, Indigenous and community organizations.

The mandate would include:

developing a three-year provincial implementation plan for growing a highly skilled workforce

supporting the administration and evaluation of new and existing pilot projects

enhancing employer engagement in the collection and dissemination of provincial and local labour market information

developing approaches to "institutionalize" pilot projects that have demonstrated best practices, and measuring the success of these pilots

engaging employers and their associations directly in addressing the barriers and challenges faced with hiring people with disabilities

ensuring that all workers in Ontario display cultural competency that includes knowledge and awareness of First Nations, Métis and Inuit histories and rights

building culturally competent, safe and inclusive workplaces

Growth sectors

The Planning and Partnership Table would focus on developing solutions for Ontario's priority growth sectors. Growth sectors should be selected by the PPT, using the following criteria:

Industry Tables would be established as sub-groups of the Planning and Partnership Table. The organization of these Tables should build on the well-established model found in colleges and in parts of the university system. Membership would include: employers (particularly those from the growth sectors identified by the PPT), labour, post-secondary institutions, training agencies, intermediaries, service providers, and Indigenous and community organizations.

Industry Tables would be selected based on growth sectors or regions selected by the PPT. These Industry Tables would be responsible for:

addressing mismatches between labour market supply and demand in the sectors or regions

leveraging existing relationships with employers to determine the skills and qualifications that employers are seeking, and develop solutions to align curriculum, training and experiential learning opportunities for students, new immigrants and adults transitioning within the workforce to address these needs

sharing best practices to inform provincial strategies

Recommendation 1-2: Establish a Workforce Planning and Development Office, in the provincial government, to drive the delivery of the Panel's recommendations and to support the government's role at the Planning and Partnership Table. The Panel feels strongly that this Office should have an inter-ministerial orientation and be outward looking. The mandate of this Office would include:

leading initiatives that support workforce planning where key partnerships between employers, community and educational institutions are critical

collaborating with employers, labour, educational institutions, training agencies, intermediaries, service providers, and Indigenous and community organizations to monitor and discuss the impact of the changing nature of the workplace on the existing and new labour force. This information would be reported to the PPT, as required

monitoring policy files that intersect economic growth and talent development, including adult education, immigration, employment and training, the Business Growth Initiative and regional economic development, and identifying opportunities for greater alignment and coordination

applying a talent development lens to major government policy initiatives, such as the recently announced Climate Change Action Plan, Patients First: Action Plan for Health Care, and response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommendations

commissioning research and evaluation on emerging and priority areas of labour focus and impact, for example, the changing technological nature of the workplace

giving oversight of the current pilot being run by the Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Development regarding the Local Employment Planning Councils (LEPCs)

giving oversight of workforce planning boards and the Ontario Centre for Workforce Innovation

collaborating with employment and training organizations that work with underrepresented groups to understand current barriers to their accessing employment and develop appropriate solutions to support increased representation in the labour market

working with the federal government to identify opportunities for alignment and collaboration

Recommendation 1-3: To ensure focused implementation of recommendation 1-1, incent sector specific partnerships between post-secondary institutions and employers using the Differentiation Policy, which encourages post-secondary institutions to play to their unique strengths, and the revised university and college funding formula. The Panel notes that some of the recommendations made by Suzanne Herbert in her 2015 report to government touch on this important point.

2. Foundational theme: labour market information

This theme recognizes that it is difficult for parties to find accurate, timely labour market information with which to make decisions like choosing a career, developing educational and training programs, or undertaking workforce planning.

What we know

Labour market information was widely cited as an area needing urgent attention. Stakeholders report that any information that is available is on multiple sites, hard to find, and challenging to interpret and apply to their particular needs

The 2016 Federal Budget reiterated a commitment by the federal government to provide students, workers, employers and educators with access to timely, reliable and comprehensive labour market information. It committed to work collaboratively with provinces and territories to provide information to equip Canadians with the tools to access a broad range of job opportunities

Labour market trends change rapidly enough that data needs to be regularly updated and forecasts refined for labour market information to be useful to people.

The Panel asked stakeholders to articulate their specific labour market data requirements

Students, adults transitioning within the workforce and guidance counsellors need:

information on job availability and where these jobs are located

required education and training for jobs posted

tasks associated with particular jobs and

potential salary

Employers need regional and sector-based labour market demand and supply-related data

Governments at all levels need data to inform policies and to make program decisions. Some ministries are using their own centrally available core data, and are collecting regional and sector-based data independently

The goal is

Anytime, anywhere access to easy-to-understand, quality assured labour market information that allows individuals to make decisions about future careers, employers to plan and find talent, and government to inform policy.

Actions to get there

Recommendation 2-1: Working with the federal government, Ontario should use the Forum of Labour Market Ministers to engage with other provinces and territories to develop an integrated national labour market information system. Ontario should take a strong leadership position on this vital issue.

This system should modernize and harmonize data collection (including Statistics Canada data) for dissemination across all provinces and territories. The system should also consider better ways of collecting data from employers.

Recommendation 2-2: The Workforce Planning and Development Office should:

lead a provincial Labour Market Information Strategy including conducting an inventory and value scan of currently available labour market information and data collection (local, provincial, aggregated and disaggregated) on metrics relevant for both skills development and economic growth across government ministries

develop an Ontario-specific digital labour market information website to aggregate existing labour market information websites and data that would consider the information needs of various audiences

develop options to increase awareness of online resources such as the Ontario Skills Passport and The Learning Partnership's Real Talk App

work with ministry partners to collect and analyze entrepreneurship data to determine how innovation currently impacts the economy and how the government can support increased innovation. The Office should leverage data currently collected from all Ontario Network of Entrepreneurs (ONE) members through a program called Data Catalyst

3. Experiential learning and mentorship

This theme recognizes that real-life experience and the advice and guidance of mentors can significantly assist entry into the workplace. Experiential learning goes beyond traditional forms of "learning by doing" such as co-op, and includes volunteering, apprenticeship, industry-recognized class projects, and mentorship.

These experiences are valuable for new immigrants, adults and students. Successful experiential learning programs provide value for the employer as well as the worker and provide individuals with opportunities to solve problems and work in interdisciplinary teams. Experiential learning also plays a valuable role in helping individuals make decisions about future careers and employment pathways.

The University of Waterloo has become a magnet for recruiters from Google parent Alphabet Inc., Electronic Arts Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., who seek the school's entrepreneurially-minded engineering graduates. Employers and school leaders say the students understand how to translate engineering projects into viable businesses.

Setting Waterloo apart is its cooperative learning model, which blends academic and practical experience. An in-house incubator, called Velocity, and an affiliated dormitory for student entrepreneurs provides opportunities for funding, mentorship and collaboration, according to the school." Lindsay Gellman, "Why Silicon Valley Recruiters Are Flocking to Ontario", The Wall Street Journal, May 4, 2016.
Wall Street Journal

The Panel supports learning beyond the classroom

Experiential learning includes:

co-op education

work-placement programs

mentorships

industry-recognized in-class projects

internships

summer jobs/experience programs

volunteer positions

apprenticeship

What we know

There is a perception that many employers do not want to participate in experiential learning programs. However, the Panel found that once relationships among intermediaries, educational institutions and employers were formed, employers were eager to participate and saw the value to their organizations. The Panel heard that many employers established long-term relationships with their partners. The Panel heard repeatedly that the key to a successful partnership is a mutual understanding of the needs and expectations of the partners

Employer participation in, and support for, experiential learning programs tends to be limited because of employer concerns about certain kinds of administrative and/or operational requirements. This concern is particularly strong with respect to small and medium-sized enterprises, many of which have little to no human resource capacity. Employer participation is also limited due to onerous time/resource requirements associated with programs and at times misalignment between the required skills and aptitude of potential hires with business needs. The Panel feels strongly that experiential learning must become an important component of business activity at all levels. The Panel heard that intermediaries are often quite effective at easing the administrative and operational burdens - i.e., de-risking, particularly for small and medium sized business

Ontario Bridge Training programs help skilled newcomers get their license or certificate in their profession or trade so they can find employment in Ontario commensurate with their skills and experience. There are good examples of employer partnerships in bridge training programs

The goal is

Increased experiential learning and mentorship opportunities for students and individuals from underrepresented groups.

Actions to get there

Recommendation 3-1: Expand the Specialist High Skills Majors Program from the current provincial footprint of 14% of all students in grades 11 and 12 to 25 % in the next three years. This program provides secondary students an opportunity to focus on a career path that matches their skills and interests. It also helps with their career development by exposing them to opportunities in the workforce. The Ministry of Education should work with the Planning and Partnership Table to expand the number of available program sectors and generate greater employer participation in this program.

Recommendation 3-2: Work with the Industry Tables to expand opportunities for experiential learning. As a first step, Ontario should commit to ensure that every student has at least one experiential learning opportunity by the end of secondary school (in addition to the existing volunteer requirements). Ontario should also commit to ensure that every student has at least one experiential learning opportunity by the time they graduate from post-secondary education. To support this Ontario should fund more placements (for students in all disciplines including liberal arts) in the growth sectors identified by the Planning and Partnership Table.

This recommendation is consistent with the Business Council of Canada's Higher Education Roundtable goal that 100% of Canadian post-secondary students participate in work-integrated and experiential learning opportunities. Simona Chiose, "Group wants workplace stints for all postsecondary students," The Globe and Mail, June 2, 2016. Accessed June 2016.

The Ontario Public Service, a large employer in the province, should demonstrate leadership by expanding experiential learning opportunities within its ranks. The province could also increase the number of experiential learning opportunities for people with disabilities.

An intermediary with the capacity to leverage existing employer relationships, such as Magnet, should develop a process that would match co-op opportunities between employers and students at the secondary and post-secondary level. This would de-risk participation in co-op programs for educational institutions and streamline the process for employers. Magnet is a not-for-profit initiative founded by Ryerson University and the Ontario Chamber of Commerce.

Recommendation 3-3: The Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Development should be given the mandate to consult with stakeholders to develop a modernized apprenticeship system reflective of the current business climate and focused on the integration of young people into the trades. This modernization could include moving all education components of an apprenticeship to the beginning of the program and establishing a central application process for anyone wanting to enter.

Recommendation 3-4: As a condition of funding through the Jobs and Prosperity Fund - a fund providing $2.5 billion over 10 years to enhance productivity, bolster innovation and grow Ontario's exports - require recipients to provide a certain number of experiential learning opportunities for post-secondary students, new immigrants and adults transitioning within the workforce. The number of the experiential learning opportunities should be based on organization size.

Recommendation 3-5: To be responsive to business needs, post-secondary institutions should allow and recognize longer (8-12 months) co-op placements.

Recommendation 3-6: Ensure adult learners have access to quality learning opportunities (including experiential learning) that are adaptable and appropriate to their needs and contexts.

4. Promotion of Multiple Career Pathways

This theme recognizes that a fast-changing economy means constantly evolving options for jobs and careers. Students, new immigrants and adults transitioning within the workforce need a greater awareness and a real understanding of all the career possibilities, traditional and non-traditional, that are available to them, including the steps to get there. This includes careers in the arts, technology/innovation, and skilled trades as well as entrepreneurship.

What we know

Parents and guardians have a strong influence on students' decisions regarding career pathways. However, the Panel heard that they are often not aware or not accepting of all the options available

Today's innovation-driven, science-based economy presents a clear opportunity to promote science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) pathways in new and attractive ways. For example, jurisdictions like British Columbia are introducing computer coding to the K-12 school curriculum. This not only provides students with an opportunity to learn skills for careers in technology, but helps them improve core transferable competencies like problem solving and the ability to think creatively

Throughout the engagement process, the Panel heard about the importance of building capacity in teachers and instructors in the K-12/Adult Credit systems, to support the development of a highly skilled workforce. Educators may require additional professional development to teach students how to use new and emerging technologies. Without this teacher training, the full potential of technology is not being realized

Students should be encouraged to keep many doors open, to maximize opportunities.

Even if we know what we want to do, they should still encourage us to look into other programs, including at colleges.

It would be beneficial to have students who have experienced the process come back and help out.
Education Minister's Student Advisory Council

Intermediaries play an important role in supporting new immigrants and adult learners by providing opportunities for them to meet, network, and obtain counselling about career options, and the skills required for these jobs.

The goal is

For individuals to understand the multiple learning pathways to many careers, and for students to have earlier exposure to non-traditional career pathways, including entrepreneurship and innovation.

Actions to get there

Recommendation 4-1: Review on a priority basis the Guidance and Career Education curriculum to ensure that it exposes students to a variety of learning pathways and opportunities and develop a plan to support guidance counselling including a professional development strategy and supports for all classroom teachers.

Recommendation 4-2: The Ministry of Education should develop a strategy to provide students in the K-12 system with exposure and access to the science, engineering and technology fields. This strategy should be complementary to Ontario's recently announced Math Strategy and use similar tools. This strategy should leverage best practices and innovative approaches already in existence, and use intermediaries where necessary to augment existing curriculum.

Recommendation 4-3: Provide professional development opportunities for teachers with a counselling role, to expand their knowledge of current and future labour market needs. This could include working with Local Employment Planning Councils, local business groups and other intermediaries.

Recommendation 4-4: Intermediaries such as the Brookfield Institute for Innovation + Entrepreneurship and Youth Fusion, with a demonstrated capacity to design and implement industry-recognized experiential learning projects, should work with school boards to introduce innovative practices designed to expose students to different career pathways in and outside the classroom.

ZerotoStartup: Celestica and Ryerson University have developed a joint initiative that provides young people between the ages of 12 to 17 with an experiential foundation in technology and exposure to entrepreneurship. It is supported by education that not only empowers young innovators to dream up the new companies of the future, but also to build the necessary skills to serve those new companies.

Recommendation 4-5: School boards should work with employers and intermediaries to develop community approaches to career counselling that provide students with exposure to role models and positive examples of traditional and non-traditional careers.

Youth Fusion is an example of an intermediary that contributes to creating closer links between training and employment while working to lower dropout rates. At-risk students have an opportunity to work on educational projects spanning 10 different fields. Employers from industries tied to the projects are also brought in as mentors to introduce students to career options and also shepherd them through the process of completing their projects. Youth Fusion."About Youth Fusion." Accessed April 4, 2016.

Recommendation 4-6: Recognize that the Canadian military annually releases into the general economy thousands of highly trained individuals many of whom are anxious to pursue second careers. Employers, community leaders, policy makers, and intermediaries should be aware of and take advantage of this highly skilled labour pool and build bridges to it.

5. Strategic Investment in Human Capital

This theme recognizes that it is as important for a successful company to invest in its employees as it is to invest in equipment or other forms of capital.

What we know

There are several reasons why employers, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, are not investing in human capital. These include:

Uncertainty around economic conditions and the return on their investment

High costs of training by third-party providers, causing an over-reliance by employers on ad hoc or informal training arrangements

Fear that an employee will find another job/be offered another job as a result of additional training and

Few relationships with education and training partners

Employers and intermediaries support cluster-based, sectoral and regional approaches to training and human capital development. These approaches reduce competition between employers by increasing the likelihood of employer participation in programs

The Social Research and Demonstration Corporation conducted a study to look at the effectiveness of workplace literacy and essential skills training in the Accommodations and Food Service sector in eight provinces. It found:

The Siemens Canada Engineering and Technology Academy Pilot was launched in conjunction with five universities and colleges in Ontario and Alberta. Students are offered a full-time salary and tuition fees as part of their participation in the program, and also gain theoretical and real-life business learning experiences. They are partnered with mentors and placed as fully-active team members in business units.

Large companies are increasingly looking to recruit or develop employees with strong social and emotional skills. Employers are looking for graduates who show nimbleness: an ability to navigate challenging and ambiguous environments. In a competitive labour market, applicants who display these traits are more likely to be hired and, over time, singled out for promotion."Business Council of Canada. Developing Canada's future workforce: a survey of large private-sector employers. 2016. Accessed April 2016. Business Council of Canada

The goal is

For Ontario employers to appreciate that human capital is as valuable and necessary to business and productivity growth as other forms of capital, and to proactively invest in employees including underrepresented groups.

Actions to get there

Recommendation 5-1: Launch a program that "franchises" successful in-house training programs developed by large employers, for adaptation by small and medium-sized enterprises. These models should support employees throughout the entire job continuum.

Recommendation 5-2: Launch a new training program for existing workers in their workplace to allow these individuals to acquire the skills and literacies that are required to adapt to the changing nature of their work or workplace.

Recommendation 5-3: Establish a " First Look " hiring process that requires employers who receive government contracts to consider qualified workers from local employment and training programs. The priority should be placed on hiring individuals from underrepresented groups. This builds on a model recently introduced by New York City.

Hospitality Workers Training Centre: We work alongside Toronto's hospitality industry to provide new highly trained talent, and develop existing staff for higher performance and growth. Our training is designed to fulfill the current needs of the industry. The hospitality industry of Toronto actively participates in curriculum development and provides avenues for training and placements and employment opportunities for our graduates. We also offer training courses to existing hospitality workers to help them advance professionally and personally. We work closely with the union, Unite Here Local 75, to offer free training opportunities for members. Our training programs for the current hospitality workforce provide skills that support individuals' advancement and mobility and help them access more hours and gain transferable skills. Also, we regularly offer computer and English classes at Hotel and Food Service properties to help build skills that support career and life goals.

Ontario Federation of Indigenous Friendship Centres: We worked with a mining company in Northern Ontario that identified a staffing need. We connected with 10 Indigenous youth who were seeking employment opportunities but needed math upgrades. The employer guaranteed employment to participants upon completion of academic upgrades. We worked with a local educational institution to develop and deliver a training program. The mining company created a classroom within the mine. Nine out of 10 individuals completed the upgrading and secured employment with the mining company.

6. Skills and competencies

This theme recognizes that there is a skills and competencies gap - both real and perceived - and that it needs to be closed. The Panel broadly defines this gap as the difference between the skills and competencies that employers need, and the skills and competencies that are available in prospective employees. During engagement, the Panel found that the existence, extent and nature of Ontario's skills gap depends on the region and/or sector being examined, and that no single solution or stakeholder would be able to close this gap.

In some cases, the skills gap can be closed by an upskilling program that is shorter than a full degree or diploma.

What we know

In some cases, skills gaps were perceived rather than real because:

individuals might have the right set of skills and credentials for a job based on education and experience, but do not know how to articulate their skill set to potential employers

employers are unable to articulate what they are looking for in an employee beyond the credential required for a job; and

employers do not always pay a competitive wage commensurate with the skills level required

Many jurisdictions, including the United States, the European Union and the Asia Pacific region, have or are developing competency-based assessment frameworks.Canada West Foundation. Smarten Up It's Time To Build Essential Skills 2015. Accessed April 2016. These frameworks can help employers gain an understanding of the specific competencies that are required for a job, making the recruitment process more efficient. They can also help workers get the right on-the-job support and training to make advancement possible

As part of the consultation held on modernizing the province's university funding formula, stakeholders noted that learning outcomes such as the development of transferable skills, including critical thinking, problem solving, leadership, and communication, should be measured. The perception was that students are not always aware of such skills even when they acquire them and, as a result, they may not be able to describe them when seeking employmentOntario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities. Focus on Outcomes, Centre on Students: Perspectives on Evolving Ontario's University Funding Model. 2015. Accessed March 2016.
Post-secondary institutions can do a better job of measuring and credentialing the general cognitive and transferable skills that have been identified as important to the labour force, and identifying which teaching practices and schooling experiences most help in the development of these skillsIbid.

Skills such as critical thinking, ability to work in teams, creativity, problem solving and resilience were all recognized by stakeholders as important, and these align with the top skills for workers in 2020 as identified by The World Economic Forum.World Economic Forum. The Future of Jobs: Employment, Skills and Workforce Strategy for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. January 2016. The Panel considers these skills to be complementary to core learning as gained through training and traditional education, including the arts, and through participation on sports teams

Competency frameworks are helpful because they articulate the business and industry requirements that are essential components for the delivery of curriculum, skill assessment instruments, and certifications. Canada West Foundation, 2016.Canada West Foundation. Smarten Up It's Time To Build Essential Skills 2015. Accessed April 2016.

Canada has one of the best-educated, most highly-credentialed workforces in the world - but that doesn't mean it is the most competent. In a world where competencies are the new credentials, Canadian workers could become even better at their jobs if we took some lessons from other jurisdictions. Slow adoption of competency frameworks is creating missed opportunities.

Canada West Foundation Canada West Foundation - Centre for Human Capital Policy. Competence Is The Best Credential. 2015.

The goal is

To shift focus away from solely measuring traditional credentials - i.e., degrees and diplomas- to better recognizing competencies that speak to important skills in the workplace.

Actions to get there

Recommendation 6-1: The Ministries of Advanced Education and Skills Development and Education and employers should collaborate with partners on the development of an Ontario-specific skills and competencies framework, using the experiences of other jurisdictions as a guide.

Ontario should demonstrate leadership at the Forum of Labour Market Ministers table by proposing a strategy for a national competency framework.

Recommendation 6-2: Working together, the Industry Tables and the Planning and Partnership Table should identify "skills gaps" in the growth sectors and launch a short term training program specifically targeted at unrepresented groups, to better allow them access to employment opportunities in those growth sectors. The program could be delivered using the bridge training model and include a career guidance component.

This program should be funded on the basis of outcome metrics ( e.g., quality of placement, duration of employment) and include an evaluation to inform future programs and policies.

Recommendation 6-3: Identify promising practices for the teaching of the competencies that are necessary for the current and future economy, such as problem solving, team work, and entrepreneurial spirit across curricular and extra-curricular learning opportunities, including through the arts, sports, math and science. The importance of these competencies should be communicated to students, employers, educators and parents.

Recommendation 6-4: Universities, colleges and private career colleges should look at ways to shift focus to needed skills and competencies.

Government's role in implementation

Throughout the engagement process, the Panel heard that the government cannot act alone to properly equip the workforce with the skills required for the jobs of today and tomorrow. It was made plain to the Panel that the proper role for government beyond establishing a good policy framework is to play an enabling and catalytic role.

The Panel recommends that the Ontario government play a leadership role in implementing the following four recommendations:

1. Establishing the Planning and Partnership Table (Recommendation 1-1)

2. Establishing the Workforce Planning and Development Office (Recommendation 1-2)

3. Working with the federal government to drive an integrated national labour market information system (Recommendation 2-1) and

4. Expanding opportunities for experiential learning in the K-12/Adult Credit and post-secondary education system (Recommendation 3-2)

Role of the federal government

The Panel has identified ways in which the Canadian government can support the growth of Ontario's highly skilled workforce. These are informed by recommendations made in the 2012 report Public Services for Ontarians: A Path to Sustainability and Excellence (The Drummond Report).

1.Greater control of immigrant selection process

It is imperative that recent immigrants can integrate into Ontario's labour force. The Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program ( OINP) is the province's selection program to retain international students and skilled foreign workers with Ontario credentials and work experience. Ontario's international student nominees demonstrate strong economic outcomes - over 82% are employed in high skilled occupations and report average earnings of over $61,000. Despite this success, the OINP is limited to a small annual allocation of 5,500 which represents only 5% of skilled immigrants coming to Ontario. The federal government is responsible for the selection of 95% of Ontario's skilled immigrants. Ministry of Citizenship, Immigration and International Trade Data 2016.

The Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program allows Ontario to nominate, for permanent residency, individuals who have the skills and experience to contribute to Ontario's economy, and assists employers in recruiting and retaining foreign workers. The program is operated in partnership with the federal government. Ontario Ministry of Citizenship, Immigration and International Trade. "Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program." Accessed April 20, 2016.

The Panel believes the province should work with the federal government to gain greater control over its immigrant selection so it can better respond to the needs of its economy and employers and, when necessary, retain and recruit top global talent.

Acces Employment: This is a service provider that works with a network of over 1,000 companies across the Greater Toronto Area to provide experienced and job-ready new immigrants to employers through a customized recruitment and engagement process. The organization engages corporate supporters at the leadership level to advise on programs and services to ensure they are responsive to employer needs. Acces also collaborates with other community partners and complementary service providers to coordinate services to meet newcomers' needs.

Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC): We have hired 40 employees from various Acces Employment programs. These individuals are highly trained, bring languages and international experience that allow us to better serve our clients. They have become a competitive advantage for BDC. We have found these employees to be very loyal to the company since we were often the first employer to reach out, recognizing the value of their international skills.

2. More flexible labour market transfers

The Panel has heard that many Ontarians - including youth, recent immigrants and members of Indigenous communities - need help improving their skills to succeed in the labour market. It has also heard that the province's productivity and competitiveness depend upon improving workers' abilities across a broad spectrum of skill levels.

Unfortunately, the federal funding meant to support provincial employment and training programs does not meet the true needs of Ontario's labour market and often unfairly restricts access for those who need it most. For instance, the majority of people in Ontario who are unemployed - and nearly all of Ontarians with very low skill levels - are not eligible for Employment Insurance ( EI). And yet, almost 70% of federal funding for Ontario's employment and training programs is restricted to workers who are currently or were recently on Employment Insurance.

To help build a highly skilled workforce, Ontario requires greater flexibility with federal funding to support its vision for a modern employment and skills training system that helps all Ontarians succeed.

In this context, the Panel urges the federal government to:

offer greater flexibility for Ontario to meet the real needs of its workforce by broadening client and program funding eligibility and

allocate labour market transfers to provinces and territories equitably, using a per capita funding formula

The Panel strongly supports the Drummond Report recommendation that the province should advocate for a comprehensive training agreement that provides provinces with enough flexibility to better align and integrate programs and services, and to identify and respond to fluid labour-market needs.

Recommendation 7-1: The Province must engage the federal government on a priority basis to improve and effect meaningful change to labour market transfers, to better meet the employment and training needs of all Ontarians.

Labour Market Development Agreements: To help unemployed Canadians quickly find and return to work and to develop a skilled labour force that meets current and emerging needs of employers, the Government of Canada has entered into labour market development agreements with provinces and territories.

Through these agreements, Government of Canada funding enables provinces and territories to design, deliver and manage skills and employment programs for unemployed Canadians, particularly for those who are eligible for Employment Insurance benefits. Government of Canada. "Labour Market Development Agreements." Accessed April 20, 2016.

Canada Job Fund: This Fund includes the Canada-Ontario Job Grant which focuses on equipping people with the skills and training they need to fill available jobs. The Canada-Ontario Job Grant provides direct financial support to employers who wish to purchase training for their employees. Ibid.

Recommendation 7-2: The Province should work with the federal government to conduct a coordinated, evidence-based review of training programs. The Province should also encourage the development of a National Skills Strategy and play a leadership role with the federal government.

Recommendation 7-3: The Province should work with the federal government to take a human capital/talent approach to new federal funding programs, for example, new investments in Indigenous Communities and in the Low Carbon Economy.

Measuring success

It is crucial that progress be monitored, measured and reported as Ontario works to grow a highly skilled workforce. This should occur on a provincial level and on a regional/local level, where possible.

The Panel recognizes that a one-size-fits-all set of metrics for the entire province is not viable. Ontario's diverse regions require unique solutions. Therefore, the Panel recommends tailored, program-specific evaluation approaches to measuring success in different regions. For example, the government could explore opportunities to provide funding for employment and training programs based on quality outcomes ( e.g., full-time work, wage growth, job continuity) and not outputs ( e.g., number of placements, number of clients served).

High level metrics such as graduation rates and unemployment rates remain important across the province. Metrics should be developed and adopted with consideration of program partners and the populations and communities the programs serve. Particular attention should be paid to measuring competencies and skills required for the current and future workforce, and the success of expanded employment opportunities for Indigenous peoples, people with disabilities, youth, and new immigrants. For example, the Panel recognizes Ontario's recently announced Math Strategy, to help support students achieve better results in mathematics, as an important investment for the increasingly knowledge-based economy. The Panel recommends that this Math Strategy be carefully monitored and evaluated to ensure that better results are achieved in mathematics.

Collecting data on a variety of metrics at provincial, regional/local and program levels will provide the government with a baseline to measure progress and to assess any necessary program modifications.

Recommendation 8-1: The Workforce Planning and Development Office should work with the Ontario Centre for Workforce Innovation and the Planning and Partnership Table to develop a performance evaluation framework and metrics to measure the impact of Panel recommendations as implemented by the government and partners.

The Panel recommends development of metrics and targets in the following areas:

experiential learning/mentorship at the K-12 and post-secondary level

effectiveness of employment and training service programs

learning outcomes, such as the development of competencies in post-secondary students in order to increase employment readiness of graduates

education outcomes and pathways into pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship programs including the Ontario Youth Apprenticeship program and the Dual Credit Program

adult literacy and numeracy rates

employer and post-secondary partnerships

rate of entrepreneurship (e.g., number of new businesses, new growth-oriented enterprises formed, number of businesses closing, number of self-employed individuals, etc.)

outcomes from underrepresented groups referenced in this report; and

employer investment in training and mentorship

Metrics should be reviewed annually, and key performance indicators and targets should be revised as appropriate. The Planning and Partnership Table should be responsible for issuing an annual report with annual metrics.

Conclusion

A highly skilled workforce is central to the strength and prosperity of Ontario, now and in the future. The Panel believes the recommendations made in this report will materially assist Ontario and its workforce achieve what is required in these fast moving, globally competitive, technologically- driven times.

The Panel calls upon all parties to work together on this critically important challenge. While the urgency is real, the opportunity is great. Collaboration, creativity and commitment should be the order of the day.

Acknowledgements

The Panel wishes to thank the people and organizations from all over the province who took the time to meet with us, to share their stories and experiences, best practices, and expert advice:

academics/education stakeholders/post-secondary institutions

labour organizations

students/student associations

intermediaries

not-for profit organizations

business associations

employers

regional roundtable participants and

advisory groups and task forces

The Panel also wishes to thank government partners for informing this report:

Employment and Social Development Canada (Federal)

Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs

Ministry of Children and Youth Services

Ministry of Citizenship, Immigration and International Trade

Ministry of Economic Development, Employment and Infrastructure

Ministry of Education

Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities

Ministry of Finance

Certain Ontario ministry names were changed on June 13, 2016.

Lastly, the Panel wishes to thank staff at Cabinet Office as this report could not have been researched, compiled, and written without your dedicated assistance.

Glossary of terms

Apprenticeship

Apprenticeship is an on-the-job training program for people who want to work in a skilled trade or occupation and includes learning new skills from skilled journeypersons. There are currently 150 apprenticeable trades in Ontario in four sectors: construction, industrial/manufacturing, motive power and service.

Bridge training programs

Ontario Bridge Training programs help skilled newcomers get their license or certificate in their profession or trade, so that they find employment commensurate with their skills and experience in Ontario. The Government of Ontario funds employers, colleges and universities, occupational regulatory bodies and community organizations to deliver bridge training programs, with support from the Government of Canada. Each bridge training program is unique, but in general they are designed to give internationally trained individuals:

an assessment of their education and skills

clinical or workplace experience

skills training or targeted academic training

preparation for a license or certification examination

occupation-related language training

individual learning plans to identify any added training needed

Competency

An ability or skill.

Credential

A document or certificate proving a person's qualifications.

De-risking

Easing the administrative or operational burden of participation in a program.

Dual credit programs

Dual Credit Programs are ministry-approved programs that allow students, while they are still in secondary school, to take college or apprenticeship courses that count towards both the Ontario Secondary School Diploma (OSSD) and a post-secondary certificate, diploma, degree or a Certificate of Apprenticeship.

Experiential learning

The process of learning or developing skills and abilities by placing students in workplaces, or in environments that simulate workplaces, so that they can learn while doing. In partnership with employers, this may include apprenticeship training, co-op placements, mentoring, and internships.

Forum of Labour Market Ministers

The Forum of Labour Market Ministers is composed of provincial and territorial ministers and the federal minister responsible for labour market issues. It is co-chaired by the federal government (Employment and Social Development) and a lead province (currently the Government of Québec). The lead province role has a two year rotation, with Québec in the role until March 31, 2017.

Human capital

The individual and collective skills, knowledge, or other assets of individuals that can be used to create economic value for the individuals, their employers, or their community.

Intermediary

People or organizations that act as a link between multiple stakeholders in order to bring about an agreement or facilitate common goals.

Journeyperson

A certified Journeyperson is recognized as a qualified and skilled person in a trade.

Labour market

The supply of available workers relative to available work or employment opportunities.

Literacy

The ability to read and write; knowledge that relates to a specified subject.

Local champion

A respected and often well-known person in the community who promotes, nurtures, and advocates on behalf of a particular project or initiative.

Local Employment Planning Councils (LEPCs)

Ontario has launched LEPC pilots as part of the Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Developments' work to modernize employment and training programs and services. LEPCs will promote place-based approaches to workforce development, while generating and analyzing local labour market information.

Mentorship

An opportunity by which someone teaches or gives help and advice to a less experienced and often younger person.

Numeracy

The ability to use numbers and mathematical approaches in a range of contexts and to solve a variety of problems.

Ontario Centre for Workforce Innovation

The Ontario Centre for Workforce Innovation is a new centre of excellence in research and innovation that will improve the province's employment and training programs that support jobseekers' readiness for and success in the job market.

Pre-Apprenticeship Training Program

The Pre-Apprenticeship Training Program helps potential entrants to the apprenticeship system develop their job skills and trade readiness so they will be prepared to find work as apprentices. Programs are up to 52 weeks in duration and may include the Level 1 apprenticeship in-school training or relevant apprenticeship training, relevant safety training and an 8 to 12 week work placement. Programs may also include trade readiness, employment preparation and academic upgrading. The Pre-Apprenticeship Training Program is open to a wide range of clients including:

high school graduates

early school leavers

unemployed/underemployed youth and adults

Employment Insurance/Non-Employment Insurance eligible

Indigenous peoples

newcomers to Canada

Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC)

PIAAC is an international survey conducted in over 40 countries by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). It measures the key cognitive and workplace skills needed for individuals to participate in society and for economies to prosper.

Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)

PISA is a triennial international survey conducted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which aims to evaluate education systems worldwide by testing the skills and knowledge of 15-year-old students. To date, students representing more than 70 economies have participated in the assessment.

Red Seal Trades

Designated Red Seal trades are governed by regulations under the Provincial and Territorial Apprenticeship Acts. These regulations outline the administrative procedures and in some cases the standards and conditions of training for specific trades (e.g. methods of registering apprentices, curriculum, accreditation, and certification). There are currently 57 designated red seal trades in Canada.

Skills

Demonstrated abilities gained from training, experience, or practice.

Specialist High Skills Majors

The Specialist High Skills Majors Program is a Ministry of Education-approved specialized program that allows students to focus their learning on a specific economic sector while meeting the requirements to graduate from secondary school. It also assists in their transition after graduation to apprenticeship training, college, university or the workplace.

Statistics Canada

Statistics Canada is a federal government agency commissioned with producing statistics to help better understand Canada, its population, resources, economy, society, and culture.

Strategic Mandate Agreements

Agreements between the Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Development and all 45 publicly assisted colleges and universities. The agreements make sure institutions are connected to various levels of the economy ― from local to global ― so students can gain experience through opportunities such as co-op programs and applied research, helping them create new businesses or find highly skilled work that will benefit Ontario.
Trades

Compulsory trade

A trade in which registration as an apprentice, journeyperson candidate or certification as a journeyperson is mandatory. There are currently 22 skilled trades that are designated "compulsory".

Voluntary trade

Every trade that is not identified as compulsory is, by default, voluntary. Certification is offered in some voluntary trades, but is not a requirement to practice in the trade.

Work-integrated learning

A formal program or arrangement between partners to enable students and individuals to learn while working on the job.

Appendix A: summary of recommendations

Foundational theme: partnerships and local leadership

Recommendation 1-1: Establish a Planning and Partnership Table ( PPT) jointly chaired by representatives from employers, education and government. This Table would be a formal, institutionalized body responsible for driving change and developing actionable solutions related to skills, talent development and experiential learning opportunities. This PPT should not be a government-driven body but rather a mechanism in which all partners are invested and action is their primary concern.

Membership would include: employers, students, labour, educational institutions, training agencies, intermediaries, Employment Ontario service providers, Indigenous and community organizations.

The mandate would include:

developing a three-year provincial implementation plan for growing a highly skilled workforce

supporting the administration and evaluation of new and existing pilot projects

enhancing employer engagement in the collection and dissemination of provincial and local labour market information

developing approaches to "institutionalize" pilot projects that have demonstrated best practices, and measuring the success of these pilots

engaging employers and their associations directly in addressing the barriers and challenges faced with hiring people with disabilities

ensuring that all workers in Ontario display cultural competency that includes knowledge and awareness of First Nations, Métis and Inuit histories and rights

building culturally competent, safe and inclusive workplaces

Growth sectors

The Planning and Partnership Table would focus on developing solutions for Ontario's priority growth sectors. Growth sectors should be selected by the PPT, using the following criteria:

Industry Tables would be established as sub-groups of the Planning and Partnership Table. The organization of these Tables should build on the well-established model found in colleges and in parts of the university system. Membership would include: employers (particularly those from the growth sectors identified by the PPT), labour, post-secondary institutions, training agencies, intermediaries, service providers, and Indigenous and community organizations.

Industry Tables would be selected based on growth sectors or regions selected by the PPT. These Industry Tables would be responsible for:

addressing mismatches between labour market supply and demand in the sectors or regions

Leveraging existing relationships with employers to determine the skills and qualifications that employers are seeking, and develop solutions to align curriculum, training and experiential learning opportunities for students, new immigrants and adults transitioning within the workforce to address these needs

sharing best practices to inform provincial strategies

Recommendation 1-2: Establish a Workforce Planning and Development Office, in the provincial government, to drive the delivery of the Panel's recommendations and to support the government's role at the Planning and Partnership Table. The Panel feels strongly that this Office should have an inter-ministerial orientation and be outward looking. The mandate of this Office would include:

leading initiatives that support workforce planning where key partnerships between employers, community and educational institutions are critical

collaborating with employers, labour, educational institutions, training agencies, intermediaries, service providers, and Indigenous and community organizations to monitor and discuss the impact of the changing nature of the workplace on the existing and new labour force. This information would be reported to the PPT, as required

monitoring policy files that intersect economic growth and talent development, including adult education, immigration, employment and training, the Business Growth Initiative and regional economic development, and identifying opportunities for greater alignment and coordination

applying a talent development lens to major government policy initiatives, such as the recently announced Climate Change Action Plan, Patients First: Action Plan for Health Care, and response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommendations

commissioning research and evaluation on emerging and priority areas of labour focus and impact for example, the changing technological nature of the workplace

giving oversight of the current pilot being run by the Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Development regarding the Local Employment Planning Councils (LEPCs)

giving oversight of workforce planning boards and the Ontario Centre for Workforce Innovation

Collaborating with employment and training organizations that work with underrepresented groups to understand current barriers to their accessing employment and develop appropriate solutions to support increased representation in the labour market

working with the federal government to identify opportunities for alignment and collaboration

Recommendation 1-3: To ensure focused implementation of recommendation 1-1, incent sector specific partnerships between post-secondary institutions and employers using the Differentiation Policy, which encourages post-secondary institutions to play to their unique strengths, and the revised university and college funding formula. The Panel notes that some of the recommendations made by Suzanne Herbert in her 2015 report to government touch on this important point.

Foundational theme: labour market information

Recommendation 2-1: Working with the federal government, Ontario should use the Forum of Labour Market Ministers to engage with other provinces and territories to develop an integrated national labour market information system. Ontario should take a strong leadership position on this vital issue.

This system should modernize and harmonize data collection (including Statistics Canada data) for dissemination across all provinces and territories. The system should also consider better ways of collecting data from employers.

Recommendation 2-2: The Workforce Planning and Development Office should:

lead a provincial Labour Market Information Strategy including conducting an inventory and value scan of currently available labour market information and data collection (local, provincial, aggregated and disaggregated) on metrics relevant for both skills development and economic growth across government ministries

develop an Ontario-specific digital labour market information website to aggregate existing labour market information websites and data that would consider the information needs of various audiences

develop options to increase awareness of online resources such as the Ontario Skills Passport and The Learning Partnership's Real Talk App

work with ministry partners to collect and analyze entrepreneurship data to determine how innovation currently impacts the economy and how the government can support increased innovation. The Office should leverage data currently collected from all Ontario Network of Entrepreneurs (ONE) members through a program called Data Catalyst

Experiential learning and mentorship

Recommendation 3-1: Expand the Specialist High Skills Majors Program from the current provincial footprint of 14% of all students in grades 11 and 12 to 25 % in the next three years. This program provides secondary students an opportunity to focus on a career path that matches their skills and interests. It also helps with their career development by exposing them to opportunities in the workforce. The Ministry of Education should work with the Planning and Partnership Table to expand the number of available program sectors and generate greater employer participation in this program.

Recommendation 3-2: Work with the Industry Tables to expand opportunities for experiential learning. As a first step, Ontario should commit to ensure that every student has at least one experiential learning opportunity by the end of secondary school (in addition to the existing volunteer requirements). Ontario should also commit to ensure that every student has at least one experiential learning opportunity by the time they graduate from post-secondary education. To support this Ontario should fund more placements (for students in all disciplines including liberal arts) in the growth sectors identified by the Planning and Partnership Table.

This recommendation is consistent with the Business Council of Canada's Higher Education Roundtable goal that 100% of Canadian post-secondary students participate in work-integrated and experiential learning opportunities. Simona Chiose, "Group wants workplace stints for all postsecondary students," The Globe and Mail, June 2, 2016. Accessed June 2016.

The Ontario Public Service, a large employer in the province, should demonstrate leadership by expanding experiential learning opportunities within its ranks. The province could also increase the number of experiential learning opportunities for people with disabilities.

An intermediary with the capacity to leverage existing employer relationships, such as Magnet, should develop a process that would match co-op opportunities between employers and students at the secondary and post-secondary level. This would de-risk participation in co-op programs for educational institutions and streamline the process for employers. Magnet is a not-for-profit initiative founded by Ryerson University and the Ontario Chamber of Commerce.

Recommendation 3-3: The Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Development should be given the mandate to consult with stakeholders to develop a modernized apprenticeship system reflective of the current business climate and focused on the integration of young people into the trades. This modernization could include moving all education components of an apprenticeship to the beginning of the program and establishing a central application process for anyone wanting to enter.

Recommendation 3-4: As a condition of funding through the Jobs and Prosperity Fund, a fund providing $2.5 billion over 10 years to enhance productivity, bolster innovation and grow Ontario's exports, require recipients to provide a certain number of experiential learning opportunities for post-secondary students, new immigrants and adults transitioning within the workforce. The number of the experiential learning opportunities should be based on organization size.

Recommendation 3-5: To be responsive to business needs, post-secondary institutions should allow and recognize longer (8-12 months) co-op placements.

Recommendation 3-6: Ensure adult learners have access to quality learning opportunities (including experiential learning) that are adaptable and appropriate to their needs and contexts.

Promotion of multiple career pathways

Recommendation 4-1: Review on a priority basis the Guidance and Career Education curriculum to ensure that it exposes students to a variety of learning pathways and opportunities and develop a plan to support guidance counselling including a professional development strategy and supports for all classroom teachers.

Recommendation 4-2: The Ministry of Education should develop a strategy to provide students in the K-12 system with exposure and access to the science, engineering and technology fields. This strategy should be complementary to Ontario's recently announced Math Strategy and use similar tools. This strategy should leverage best practices and innovative approaches already in existence, and use intermediaries where necessary to augment existing curriculum.

Recommendation 4-3: Provide professional development opportunities for teachers with a counselling role, to expand their knowledge of current and future labour market needs. This could include working with Local Employment Planning Councils, local business groups and other intermediaries.

Recommendation 4-4:Intermediaries such as the Brookfield Institute for Innovation + Entrepreneurship and Youth Fusion, with a demonstrated capacity to design and implement industry-recognized experiential learning projects, should work with school boards to introduce innovative practices designed to expose students to different career pathways in and outside the classroom.

Recommendation 4-5: School boards should work with employers and intermediaries to develop community approaches to career counselling that provide students with exposure to role models and positive examples of traditional and non-traditional careers.

Recommendation 4-6: Recognize that the Canadian military annually releases into the general economy thousands of highly trained individuals many of whom are anxious to pursue second careers. Employers, community leaders, policy makers, and intermediaries should be aware of and take advantage of this highly skilled labour pool and build bridges to it.

Strategic investment in human capital

Recommendation 5-1: Launch a program that "franchises" successful in-house training programs developed by large employers, for adaptation by small and medium-sized enterprises. These models should support employees throughout the entire job continuum.

Recommendation 5-2: Launch a new training program for existing workers in their workplace to allow these individuals to acquire the skills and literacies that are required to adapt to the changing nature of their work or workplace.

Recommendation 5-3: Establish a " First Look " hiring process that requires employers who receive government contracts to consider qualified workers from local employment and training programs. The priority should be placed on hiring individuals from underrepresented groups. This builds on a model recently introduced by New York City.

Skills and competencies

Recommendation 6-1: The Ministries of Advanced Education and Skills Development and Education and employers should collaborate with partners on the development of an Ontario-specific skills and competencies framework, using the experiences of other jurisdictions as a guide.

Ontario should demonstrate leadership at the Forum of Labour Market Ministers table by proposing a strategy for a national competency framework.

Recommendation 6-2: Working together, the Industry Tables and the Planning and Partnership Table should identify "skills gaps" in the growth sectors and launch a short term training program specifically targeted at unrepresented groups, to better allow them access to employment opportunities in those growth sectors. The program could be delivered using the bridge training model and include a career guidance component.

This program should be funded on the basis of outcome metrics ( e.g., quality of placement, duration of employment) and include an evaluation to inform future programs and policies.

Recommendation 6-3: Identify promising practices for the teaching of the competencies that are necessary for the current and future economy, such as problem solving, team work, and entrepreneurial spirit across curricular and extra-curricular learning opportunities, including through the arts, sports, math and science. The importance of these competencies should be communicated to students, employers, educators and parents.

Recommendation 6-4: Universities, colleges and private career colleges should look at ways to shift focus to needed skills and competencies.

More flexible labour market transfers

Recommendation 7-1: The Province must engage the federal government on a priority basis to improve and effect meaningful change to labour market transfers, to better meet the employment and training needs of all Ontarians.

Recommendation 7-2: The Province should work with the federal government to conduct a coordinated, evidence-based review of training programs. The Province should also encourage the development of a National Skills Strategy and play a leadership role with the federal government.

Recommendation 7-3: The Province should work with the federal government to take a human capital/talent approach to new federal funding programs, for example new investments in Indigenous Communities and in the Low Carbon Economy.

Measuring success

Recommendation 8-1: The Workforce Planning and Development Office should work with the Ontario Centre for Workforce Innovation and the Planning and Partnership Table to develop a performance evaluation framework and metrics to measure the impact of Panel recommendations as implemented by the government and partners.

The Panel recommends development of metrics and targets in the following areas:

experiential learning/mentorship at the K-12 and post-secondary level

effectiveness of employment and training service programs

learning outcomes, such as the development of competencies in post-secondary students in order to increase employment readiness of graduates

education outcomes and pathways into pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship programs including the Ontario Youth Apprenticeship program and the Dual Credit Program

adult literacy and numeracy rates

employer and post-secondary partnerships

rate of entrepreneurship (e.g. number of new businesses, new growth-oriented enterprises formed, number of businesses closing, number of self-employed individuals, etc.)

outcomes from underrepresented groups referenced in this report and

employer investment in training and mentorship

Metrics should be reviewed annually, and key performance indicators and targets should be revised as appropriate. The Planning and Partnership Table should be responsible for issuing an annual report with annual metrics.

Appendix B: proposed timelines for implementation

Short term (first 6 months)

Recommendation 1-1
Recommendation 1-2
Recommendation 2-2
Recommendation 3-4
Recommendation 5-1
Recommendation 5-3
Recommendation 8-1

Medium-term (1-2 Years)

Recommendation 1-3
Recommendation 2-1
Recommendation 3-1
Recommendation 3-2
Recommendation 3-5
Recommendation 3-6
Recommendation 4-2
Recommendation 4-3
Recommendation 4-4
Recommendation 5-2
Recommendation 6-1
Recommendation 7-1
Recommendation 7-2
Recommendation 7-3

Long-term (2 +Years)

Recommendation 3-3
Recommendation 4-1
Recommendation 4-5
Recommendation 4-6
Recommendation 6-2
Recommendation 6-3
Recommendation 6-4

Appendix C: what the panel heard

To inform this report, the Panel met with educational institutions, employers, students, business associations, business leaders, labour organizations, community organizations, and government organizations. The following section highlights some of the recurring feedback heard from stakeholders.

Growing a highly skilled workforce is a shared responsibility

Training, education and employment need to be a shared responsibility among individuals, institutions, training agents, employers, intermediaries and all levels of government.

While some community partnerships that focus on skills development do exist in Ontario, they do not exist on a broad scale. Successful partnerships need to be promoted to serve as models and as inspirations. Local leaders need to champion local initiatives and projects that focus on skills development to encourage greater participation within the community.

Businesses, educational institutions, intermediaries, and unions should be working more closely together to develop a talent pool that possesses the skills and competencies to drive growth and to increase Ontario's competitiveness for the knowledge-based innovative economy of the future.

Local labour market information is needed to inform decisions

Employers, students, educators, individuals re-entering the labour market, new immigrants, labour organizations, government ministries and municipalities are increasingly looking for regional labour market information to inform decisions.

Multiple bodies distribute labour market information, including government ministries. This creates a complex web of information that is difficult to navigate.

Organizations, such as Magnet, are considered by employers to be crucial partners in collecting and analyzing local labour market information

The County of Simcoe and Hamilton have spearheaded two of several locally-led initiatives from across the province that collect tailored sector-based or regional-based labour market information to inform business needs.

Experiential learning is an effective way to develop the skills and competencies employers are seeking

Students need more opportunities for high-quality experiential learning during K-12/Adult Credit and post-secondary education, including exposure to entrepreneurship. Experiential learning is also valuable for new immigrants and adults transitioning within the workforce

Employer participation is the biggest challenge to scaling-up existing experiential learning programs. Many small businesses are not aware of programs that are designed to fill the "skills gap" such as bridge training programs, Specialist High Skills Majors, and/or cannot afford the staff to coordinate involvement

Skilled trades are important to Ontario's economic growth. However, Ontario's apprenticeship system, which is a sub-set of experiential learning, is outdated and the system is designed in such a way that students and employers find it difficult to establish partnerships

Individuals are not aware of the full array of education and career options available to them

Students have limited access to career guidance throughout the K-12 system and find it challenging to make career decisions. Students who do receive career guidance actively seek it out. Effectively guiding students means exposing them to multiple fields and helping them to find and pursue their passions, which can range from arts, music and drama to science and math. Apprenticeship should be promoted as a pathway to entrepreneurship
students would like career planning embedded earlier and throughout the curriculum in both the K-12/Adult Credit and post-secondary education systems

There are opportunities to better promote all career paths (including colleges and apprenticeships) and entrepreneurial pathways in the K-12/Adult Credit system (over and above the mandatory Grade 10 Career Studies course) at Employment Ontario service providers and other intermediaries

The full benefit of strategic human resource planning is not being realized

Business leadership and strategic thinking, which includes workforce planning and training, are consistent factors in sectors that are growing

Firms that have workers with higher essential skills, including literacy and numeracy, report higher employee retention rates, lower absenteeism, and increased production quality and productivityCanadian Business Insights. How Essential-Skills Training Unlocks Business Value. May 15, 2014.

Competencies are as important as credentials

"Social and emotional skills" are as valuable as technical skills: all sectors cite teamwork and project management skills as being as important as traditional skills such as math and reading

Individuals need to develop their existing skills and competencies, or acquire supplementary skills and competencies, to round out and enhance their skills set. This can often be done through the completion of short training and development programs, courses or projects (e.g., micro-credentialing or nanodegrees)

In 2015, Ontario held consultations on modernizing the province's university funding model. Concerns heard included:

Appendix D: panel mandate and scope of work

In fall 2015, Ontario appointed five members to the Premier's Highly Skilled Workforce Expert Panel (the "Panel"). The group is comprised of Chair Sean Conway and members Dr. Carol Campbell, Robert Hardt, Alison Loat and Pradeep Sood.

The Panel was asked to develop a strategy to help the province's workforce adapt to the demands of a technology-driven knowledge economy. During its tenure, the Panel was to assess how well the workforce was positioned to meet the needs of Ontario's economy and recommend an integrated approach for the government to bridge education, training and skills development with the demands of an evolving economic landscape.

Ontario chose the Panel members based on their professional experience, knowledge of the business climate, relationships with a cross-section of stakeholder groups and understanding of employers, the education and public sectors, and issues related to the labour market. The Panel engaged with stakeholders, including primary and secondary schools, post-secondary institutions, employers, labour organizations, students and youth, seniors, immigrant-serving organizations, people with disabilities and Indigenous communities.

Appendix E: expert panel member biographies
Sean Conway, Chair
Sean Conway is a Visiting Fellow with the Centre for Urban Energy at Ryerson University, and a Public Policy Advisor with Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP. From 1975 to 2003, he was a member of the Ontario Legislative Assembly. During the Government of David Peterson (1985-90), Mr. Conway served as Minister of Education, and as Minister of Colleges, Universities and Skills Development. He has also served as Chair of the Board of Directors of the Ontario Centres of Excellence.

Mr. Conway holds a graduate degree in history from Queen's University. Upon leaving the legislature, Mr. Conway was the recipient of the Churchill Society Award for Excellence in the Cause of Parliamentary Democracy.
Dr. Carol Campbell
Dr. Carol Campbell is Associate Professor of Leadership and Educational Change at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education ( OISE), University of Toronto. Dr. Campbell is Education Adviser to the Premier and Minister of Education. She is known for her commitment to combining evidence from professional knowledge and research to develop professional capacity for educational improvement.

Dr. Campbell is Director of the Knowledge Network for Applied Education Research, a partnership between the Ontario Ministry of Education, University of Toronto and Western University to advance the mobilization and application of research and professional knowledge to improve educational practices in Ontario. Previously, Dr. Campbell was Senior Executive Officer for The Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat and was appointed Ontario's first Chief Research Officer for Education. She is a former Executive Director of the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education at Stanford University.

Dr. Campbell holds a doctorate degree from the University of Strathclyde and was previously an academic at the Institute of Education, University of London and a policy advisor for government and school districts in the U.K.
Robert Hardt
Robert Hardt is President and CEO of Siemens Canada Limited. Mr. Hardt, an electrical engineer by training, regularly contributes to the manufacturing and technology dialogue in national media and through speaking engagements. He is passionate about developing the engineering profession and enhancing skills education in Canada and has built strong relationships between industry professionals and educational institutions.

Mr. Hardt is the Chair of the Canadian German Chamber of Industry and Commerce and an active member of the Business Council of Canada, The Learning Partnership, International Chief Executives in Canada (The Conference Board of Canada) and is on the Advisory Council, Manufacturing for the Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters.

Mr. Hardt holds a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Technical College Aachen in Germany and started his career with Siemens AG in 1988. He joined Siemens Canada in 2007, holding several senior management positions prior to being named President and CEO in 2012.
Alison Loat
Alison Loat is co-founder of Samara, a charitable non-partisan organization that improves political participation in Canada, and former Executive Director (2008-2015), when she led strategy, business planning, resource development and operations. Previously, she worked at McKinsey & Company, where she led teams that developed strategies for businesses and governments in Europe and North America.

Ms. Loat holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) degree from Queen's University and a Masters of Public Policy degree from Harvard Kennedy School. For her work in public service, she received the Public Policy Forum's Youth Leaders Award and the Queen's Gold and Diamond Jubilee Medals. Ms. Loat was named one of the Women Executive Network's 100 Top Women in Canada in 2013 and is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader.
Pradeep Sood
Pradeep Sood is Chairman of Highbury Canco Corporation, a food processing company. He is Founder and Owner of XactScribe Inc., an Ontario-based transcription company using digital technology, and CEO of Starling Corporation, a management consulting company that provides advice to small businesses on market research, business development, supply chain, and financing.

Mr. Sood was formerly Chair of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce, Director of the Toronto Regional Board of Trade and Director of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. He has had the honour of serving on business boards on all three levels of government.

Passionate about giving back to the community, Mr. Sood supports a number of community organizations, including the Royal Ontario Museum, Harbourfront Centre, the Textile Museum of Canada and the Bridgepoint Health Foundation.

He holds a Bachelor's degree in Economics (Honours) from Delhi University and has a Chartered Accountants designation from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. He is a member of the Institute of Corporate Directors at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management.

Appendix F: summary of stakeholders consulted

Academics/education stakeholders/post-secondary institutions

Association des conseils scolaires des écoles publiques de l'Ontario (ACÉPO)

Career Colleges Ontario

Colleges Ontario

Colleges Ontario Committee of Presidents

Council of Ontario Directors of Education

Council of Ontario Universities (Presidents)

Don Drummond, Stauffer-Dunning Fellow at Queen's University

Graham Orpwood, Professor Emeritus, York University

Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario

Industry Education Council of Hamilton

Institute for Competitiveness and Prosperity/Martin Prosperity Institute

Mohawk College

Niagara College

Ontario Association of Adult & Continuing Education School Board Administrators

Ontario Catholic School Trustees'Association

Ontario College of Teachers

Ontario School Counsellors Association

Oshki-Pimache-O-Win Education and Training Institute (NishnawbeAski Nation)

People for Education

Ross Finnie, Full Professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa

Seneca College

Teachers' federations

Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association

Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation

Students / student associations

Canadian Federation of Students - Ontario

College Student Alliance

Minister's Student Advisory Council

Ontario First Nations Young Peoples Council (Chiefs of Ontario)

Ontario Student Trustees' Association (OSTA-AECO)

Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance

Premier's Youth Opportunities Council

Regroupement étudiant franco-ontarien (REFO)

Intermediaries

Aboriginal Apprenticeship Board of Ontario

ACCES Employment

Canadian Association of Retired Persons

Centre for Social Innovation

Communitech

Futurpreneur Canada

Hospitality Workers Training Centre

Innovonomics

LinkedIn

Magnet

MaRS Discovery District

Ontario Centres of Excellence

Ontario Centre for Workforce Innovation

Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants

Ontario Tourism Education Centre

Pathways to Education

Riipen

Skills Ontario

The Learning Partnership

Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council

Not-for Profit organizations

Abc Life Literacy

Frontier College

Martin Aboriginal Initiatives

Yves Landry Foundation

Business associations / Professional associations

Business Council of Canada

Business Council of Canada's Business-Higher Education Roundtable

Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters

Council of Ontario Construction Associations

Human Resources Professional Association

Ontario Chamber of Commerce

Ontario Home Builders' Association

Ontario Sewer and Watermain Construction Association

Ontario Society of Professional Engineers

Residential Construction Council of Ontario

Toronto Financial Services Alliance

Indigenous Partners

Chiefs of Ontario

Ontario Federation of Indigenous Friendship Centres

Employers

Baylis Medical

Bombardier

Business Development Bank of Canada

City of Hamilton Blue Ribbon Task Force

ArcelorMittal Dofasco

City of Hamilton

Hamilton Chamber of Commerce

Hamilton Economic Development

Hamilton Workforce Planning

Maple Leaf Foods

Mohawk College

Us Steel Car

Renfrew County Skilled Workforce Strategy Forum with educators, employers, labour market planners hosted by Algonquin College Pembroke Campus

Algonquin College Ottawa

Algonquin College Perth Campus

Bishop Smith Catholic School

Bonnechere Manor

Canadian Nuclear Laboratories

City of Pembroke

Community Futures

County of Renfrew

Eastway

Egm Insurance

Hindjua Global Solutions

Labour Market Group, Algonquin College Pembroke

National Research Council

Pembroke Hospital

Renfrew County Catholic School Board District

Renfrew County District School Board

Renfrew Industrial Commission

Upper Ottawa Valley Chamber of Commerce

Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities' Service Delivery Advisory Group

Centennial College (Toronto)

Collège Boréal

Costi Immigration Services; Past President, Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants

Employment, Skilled Trades, ESL & Immigrant Services

Job Zone d'emploi

Keys Job Centre; President, Board of Directors, First Work

Loyalist College

MiziweBiik Aboriginal Employment and Training

Ontario Association of Adult and Continuing Education School Board (CESBA)

Ontario Network of Employment Skills Training Projects (ONESTEP)

Sioux Hudson Literacy Council

Southwest Centre for Community

Programme Development (also known as Community Employment Services)

Unemployed Help Centre of Windsor Inc.

Victoria County Career Services

YMCA of Hamilton, Burlington, Brantford (aka YMCA Careerworx)

YMCA of Owen Sound Grey Bruce

Youth Employment Services (North Bay)

Simcoe Muskoka Workforce Development Board/County of Simcoe Roundtable with Employers and Educators

County of Simcoe

Creemore Breweries

Deerhurst Resort/Horseshoe Resort

District of Muskoka

Fern Resort

Georgian College

Horseshoe Resort

Innovative Automation

Jarlette Health Services

Lakehead University

MacLean Engineering

Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities Regional

Ontario Provincial Police

Simcoe Muskoka Workforce Development Board

Tanger Outlet Mall

Weber Manufacturing Technologies

YMCA of Simcoe/Muskoka

Round table with representatives from the Eastern Ontario Leadership Council

County of Hastings

Eastern Ontario Regional Network

Natural Capital Resources Inc.

Ontario Chamber of Commerce Roundtable with employers

BMP Metals

GVA Lighting

iS5 Communications Inc.

Inflamax Research Inc.

Macro Engineering

Ontario Chamber of Commerce

Therapure Biopharma

Veriday

York Metals

Government

Employment and Social Development Canada (Federal)

Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs

Ministry of Children and Youth Services

Ministry of Citizenship, Immigration and International Trade

Ministry of Economic Development, Employment and Infrastructure

Ministry of Education

Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities

Labour organizations

Canadian Union of Public Employees

Canadian Union of Skilled Workers

International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers

Labour Education Centre

Ontario Federation of Labour

Ontario Nurses' Association

Ontario Society of Energy Professionals

Public Service Alliance of Canada

Other

Brookfield Institute for Innovation + Entrepreneurship

Consulate General of Canada in Dallas

City of Ajax

Griffiths-Sheppard Consulting Group

McKinsey and Company

Ontario College of Trades

Partnership Council on Employment Opportunities for People with Disabilities

Tom Zizys, Metcalf Foundation Fellow

Addendum: Planning and Partnership Table

Ontario's labour market is rapidly changing and placing new demands on learners, jobseekers and workers.

The Planning and Partnership Table ( PPT) is a forum of education, business, labour, government and other leaders that supports Ontario's Highly Skilled Workforce strategy, bridging the worlds of business, education and training to ensure that the province's current and future workforce can adapt to the demands of a technology-driven knowledge economy.

The PPT's role is to guide and inform the province-wide Highly Skilled Workforce strategy, advising on and supporting the implementation of specific actions, and acting as champions for the strategy - leading by example within their organizations, sectors and communities across Ontario.

Establishing the Planning and Partnership table was recommended by the Premier's Highly Skilled Workforce Expert Panel in their final report.

Planning and Partnership Table Members

Hon. Mitzie Hunter, Co-Chair
Minister of Advanced Education and Skills Development

Andrew Pariser
Vice President
Residential Construction Council of Ontario ( RESCON)

Dr. Denis-Richard Roy
Former President and CEO
Health Sciences North / Horizon Santé Nord

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Building the Workforce of Tomorrow: A Shared Responsibility

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In 2015, the Premier's Highly Skilled Workforce Expert Panel was appointed to develop a strategy to help the province's current and future workforce adapt to the demands of a technology-driven knowledge economy. This report contains the Panel's final recommendations. Download full report (PDF) Download summary (PDF)

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Pasi Sahlberg | Finnish educator, author, and scholar

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Since wars begin in the minds of men and women, it is in the minds of men and women that peace must be built. UNESCO uses education, science, culture, communication and information to foster mutual understanding and respect for our planet.

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The world is changing and so are its schools. In recognition of the need to prepare students for an evolving and increasingly interconnected world, a growing number of countries have remodeled their education systems to deliver an education built for the 21st century, producing higher achievement and greater equity than the U.S.

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Among the strategies these systems have pursued, none have been more important than the policies they have developed to ensure that high-quality teaching takes place in every classroom, in every school, for every child.

Empowered Educators is a landmark, international comparative study of teacher and teaching quality in the world's top-performing education systems.

With the support of the Center on International Benchmarking at the National Center on Education and the Economy, one of the world's preeminent education researchers, Linda Darling-Hammond launched the work from the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education (SCOPE) at Stanford University. Darling-Hammond, now leading the Learning Policy Institute (LPI) in Palo Alto, CA, drew together a global team of education researchers in the three-year study, producing unparalleled insights for U.S. educators, researchers and policymakers.

The researchers investigated seven jurisdictions across four continents. Their findings reveal two principle answers to the central question of how other countries have surpassed the U.S. in preparing their students to compete in the 21 st century global economy:

First, these countries have focused on building effective systems, opting not to chase silver bullets or short-term, narrow-focused solutions.

Second, these countries have held at the core of their work a commitment to professionalizing teaching as an occupation.

The centerpiece of the study, Empowered Educators: How High-Performing Systems Shape Teaching Quality Around the World from Jossey-Bass publishers, is a cross-cutting analysis of all seven systems. Also from Jossey-Bass are five e-books offering deep dives into each jurisdiction studied.

For policymakers and researchers, CIEB and NCEE is proud to host a series of in-depth policy and country briefs as well as a rich online resource library featuring interviews with international education leaders and original tools and documents from the countries studied.

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The world is changing and so are its schools. In recognition of the need to prepare students for an evolving and increasingly interconnected world, a growing number of countries have remodeled their education systems to deliver an education built for the 21st century, producing higher achievement and greater equity than the U.S.

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Wheelahan, Leesa, & Moodie, Gavin. (2016). Global Trends in TVET: a framework for social justice. Education International. Retrieved from Brussels

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Wheelahan, Leesa, & Moodie, Gavin. (2016). Global Trends in TVET: a framework for social justice. Education International. Retrieved from Brussels

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Reay, Diane. (2012). What would a socially just education system look like?: saving the minnows from the pike. Journal of Education Policy, 27(5), 587-599

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Reay, Diane. (2012). What would a socially just education system look like?: saving the minnows from the pike. Journal of Education Policy, 27(5), 587-599

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2012_Reay_What would a socially just ed system look like_JEP

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Moodie, Gavin, Wheelahan, Leesa, & Lavigne, Eric. (2019). Technical and Vocational Education and Training as a Framework for Social Justice: Analysis and Evidence From World Case Studies. 

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Moodie, Gavin, Wheelahan, Leesa, & Lavigne, Eric. (2019). Technical and Vocational Education and Training as a Framework for Social Justice: Analysis and Evidence From World Case Studies. 

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Technical and Vocational Education and Training as a Framework for Social Justice: Analysis and Evidence From World Case Studies. Gavin Mo... See More

Technical and Vocational Education and Training as a Framework for Social Justice: Analysis and Evidence From World Case Studies. Gavin Mo... See More

Connecting content to people.

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Technical and Vocational Education and Training as a Framework for Social Justice

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Technical and Vocational Education and Training as a Framework for Social Justice: Analysis and Evidence From World Case Studies. Gavin Moodie, Leesa Wheelahan, and Eric Lavigne University of Toronto, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Education International, 2019

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McGrath, Simon, & Deneulin, Séverine. (2021). Education for just transitions: Lifelong learning and the 30th anniversary Human Development Report. International Review of Education.

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McGrath, Simon, & Deneulin, Séverine. (2021). Education for just transitions: Lifelong learning and the 30th anniversary Human Development Report. International Review of Education.

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The UNESCO-UNEVOC Country Profiles aim to provide concise, reliable and up-to-date information on TVET systems worldwide. Dynamic TVET diagrams illustrate education systems and the role of TVET at a glance. Statistical data can easily be compared across countries. Please help us improve the profiles by using the feedback form.

A NOTE ON MAPS:

The designations employed and the presentation of material on any maps used as part of this service do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of UNESCO concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or any area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The UNESCO-UNEVOC Country Profiles aim to provide concise, reliable and up-to-date information on TVET systems worldwide. Dynamic TVET diagrams illustrate education systems and the role of TVET at a glance. Statistical data can easily be compared across countries. Please help us improve the profiles by using the feedback form.

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https://gpseducation.oecd.org/Content/MapOfEducationSystem/FIN/FIN_2011_EN.pdf

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In recent years government funding has been reduced. A great deal of variance in VET institutions due to granted pedagogical autonomy. Funding is shifting towards results-based. More VET students are from working class backgrounds.

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The Finnish education system

The Finnish education system consists of

early childhood education and care

pre-primary education

basic education

general upper secondary education

vocational education

higher education

adult education

Compulsory schooling consists of one-year pre-primary education for 6-year-olds and nine-year basic education for children aged 7-16.

Post-compulsory education consists of three-year general and vocational upper secondary education and training. General upper secondary lead to matriculation examination and vocational to vocational qualification.

Higher education system in Finland

The Finnish higher education system comprises universities and universities of applied sciences. Universities engage both in education and research and have the right to award doctorates. Universities of applied sciences are multi-field institutions of professional higher education. Universities of applied sciences engage in applied research and development.

First and second cycle higher education studies are measured in credits. Study courses are quantified according to the work load required. One year of full-time study is equivalent to 1600 hours of student work on average and is defined as 60 credits. The credit system complies with the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS).

Higher education qualifications in Finland are referenced at levels 6, 7 and 8 both in the National Qualifications Framework as well as in the European Qualifications Framework.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Finnish education system consists of early childhood education and care, pre-primary and basic education, general upper secondary and vocational education and training and higher education. The compulsory schooling consists of one-year pre-primary education for 6-year-olds and nine-year basic education for children aged 7-16.

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.oph.fi/sites/default/files/documents/education-system-in-finland-infographic.pdf

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.oph.fi/sites/default/files/documents/finnish_education_in_a_nutshell.pdf

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Finnish education system

The Finnish education system consists of

early childhood education and care

pre-primary education

basic education

general upper secondary education

vocational education

higher education

adult education

Compulsory schooling consists of one-year pre-primary education for 6-year-olds and nine-year basic education for children aged 7-16.

Post-compulsory education consists of three-year general and vocational upper secondary education and training. General upper secondary lead to matriculation examination and vocational to vocational qualification.

Higher education system in Finland

The Finnish higher education system comprises universities and universities of applied sciences. Universities engage both in education and research and have the right to award doctorates. Universities of applied sciences are multi-field institutions of professional higher education. Universities of applied sciences engage in applied research and development.

First and second cycle higher education studies are measured in credits. Study courses are quantified according to the work load required. One year of full-time study is equivalent to 1600 hours of student work on average and is defined as 60 credits. The credit system complies with the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS).

Higher education qualifications in Finland are referenced at levels 6, 7 and 8 both in the National Qualifications Framework as well as in the European Qualifications Framework.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Finnish education system consists of early childhood education and care, pre-primary and basic education, general upper secondary and vocational education and training and higher education. The compulsory schooling consists of one-year pre-primary education for 6-year-olds and nine-year basic education for children aged 7-16.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Context

The Republic of Korea has ranked among the top-performing nations throughout PISA's administration, despite small dips in 2009 and 2012. Korea's performance is also among the most equitable of OECD countries, although 2018 saw a slight increase in the gap between high- and low-performing students, due to a drop in scores of the lowest performers. Still, Korea's academic prowess represents a remarkable achievement for a country that essentially built a brand-new education system at the end of the 20th century.

Following the Korean War, the Korean government shifted authority for education from local school boards to the Ministry of Education. The 1949 Basic Education Law established six years of primary school, beginning at age 6, followed by three years of lower secondary school and then three years of upper secondary school. By the mid-1960s, 90 percent of children ages 6 to 12 were attending school, which eliminated what had been widespread illiteracy. By 1979, children were enrolled in lower secondary schools at the same rates, and by 2018, some 98 percent of 25- to 34-year-olds had completed upper secondary education-the highest rate among OECD countries. By that same year, 70 percent of this age group had also completed postsecondary education, again the highest rate among OECD countries, and that rate continues to grow.

Korea's education system was and remains highly test-driven, despite recent efforts to change. In Korea, most education and career opportunities depend on which upper secondary school and college or university students attend, and admissions decisions are still based largely on test scores. As of 2018, more than 70 percent of Korean primary and secondary school students worked with private tutors, often at after-school tutoring centers ( ). The prevalence of private tutoring has raised concerns about inequality and student stress, and the government has taken steps to reduce test pressure and the demand for . The government instituted an exam-free semester-recently expanded to a full year-in lower secondary schools, and some regions have imposed limitations on operating hours. In addition, the government has attempted to expand admissions criteria for higher education beyond exam results. It is not clear if these measures have worked. Top tier universities still hold the promise of prestigious and high paying jobs to students and their families.

Teacher quality is a factor in Korean success. In response to severe secondary school teacher shortages in the 1960s and 1970s, Korea took steps toward building a strong, highly-qualified teaching force, including establishing four-year colleges and universities dedicated to teacher preparation; developing a system for forecasting and responding to teacher supply and demand; and increasing the salaries of teachers. The passage of the Special Act on the Improvement of Teachers' Status in 1991 enhanced the status of the teaching profession by guaranteeing job protections, competitive salaries, and authority and input into educational matters. Today, teachers in Korea enjoy high social status, job stability, and high pay, and more than 80 percent report that teaching was their first-choice profession, compared to the OECD average of 67 percent. Applicants accepted into primary school teacher education programs generally come from the top 10 percent of their secondary school cohort, and all teachers must pass a rigorous employment exam in order to work in public schools. The proportion of all Korean teachers who are fully certified and hold bachelor's degrees is among the highest in the world.

During the past decade, Korea has embarked on reforms to update its already successful education system to better prepare students for a fast-changing global economy. The government revamped its curriculum to focus on the development of creativity and character-building along with "key competencies" across all subject areas. It has also dramatically expanded the early childhood education and care system, increased financial and academic support for high-need students, developed leadership paths and expanded training for teachers, and restructured vocational education and training to better meet labor market needs.

GDP: $2,211 billion

GDP per capita: $42,765 (2019 estimate in 2010 dollars)
Source: CIA World Factbook 2021

Services-dominated economy

Key services industries: retail, transportation, financial services, education, health care

Key manufacturing areas: consumer electronics, household goods, automobiles, steel
Source: CIA World Factbook 2021

Governance

Governance Structure

The central Ministry of Education oversees Korea's education system and is responsible for setting national education policy for primary and secondary schools, including the national curriculum. The Ministry of Health and Welfare shares responsibility for children up to age 5 with the Ministry of Education.

The Ministry of Education's Policy Advisory Council, an advisory body with more than 100 members, gathers information and opinions on education policy, both domestic and international, to advise the Ministry. Council members are appointed to three-year terms and can include regional superintendents of education, university presidents, and representatives of education organizations and other non-governmental organizations. Korea also has a set of government-supported research institutes that focus on specific policy areas: the Korea Institute of Curriculum and Evaluation (KICE); the Korean Research Institute for Vocational Education and Training (KRIVET); the Korea Institute of Child Care and Education (KICCE); the Korean Education and Research Information Service (KERIS); and The Korean Education Development Institute (KEDI).

Since 2008, there has been a shift toward greater autonomy for Korea's 17 regional education offices, which oversee the education system in large metropolitan areas and provinces. These offices are now responsible for school budgets and school inspection, although the central Ministry retains control over national policy. Regional superintendents and school board members are elected positions. Superintendents must have at least three years' experience in education or educational administration, and more than 50 percent of board members must have at least 10 years' experience in education. Local education offices (numbering 176 at the county level) oversee local schools and implement national and regional policies. Each school has its own school council, which includes parents, educators, and other stakeholders. The school council has input into decisions around promotion, professional development, and other matters.

Planning and Goals

Korea's Ministry of Education prepares annual reports outlining education policy goals for the coming year. The reports also analyze broad challenges facing Korea. For example, the Ministry's 2020 report analyzes the impact of artificial intelligence and related technologies on the economy and recommends the development of draft artificial intelligence education standards for primary and secondary schools to help students be better prepared for a changing economy.

Each annual report also provides an evaluation of recently implemented education policies and initiatives. Results are generally presented in terms of progress against a quantitative indicator, such as employment rates of secondary school graduates.

Education Finance

The Ministry of Education provides regional and local governments more than 75 percent of funding for schools. Among other costs, these national subsidies cover the salaries for teachers in compulsory education. The remaining quarter of education spending comes from regional funds and school fees for academic upper secondary education, which is not compulsory. Most allocation of this funding is done at the local level.

About 15 percent of primary and secondary schools in Korea are private, most at the secondary school level. Private schools receive public funding. In return, they do not charge school fees for compulsory education and cannot charge higher fees for upper secondary education than public schools charge. Private schools adhere to the national curriculum, and teachers are required to meet the same standards for teacher certification as in public schools. The key difference is that teachers are employed directly by the school rather than by the Ministry, which means that they are not required to rotate among schools, as are public school teachers. In 2009, the government granted increased autonomy for curriculum and student selection to a small group of private upper secondary schools referred to as autonomous schools, which can charge higher tuition fees and do not receive government subsidies.

Until 2021, families paid upper secondary schools fees to cover expenses like admission fees and textbooks. In 2021, the government eliminated school fees for all but a small set of the most elite upper secondary schools and will eliminate fees for all upper secondary schools by 2025. This includes vocational secondary schools.

Accountability

School Accountability

Regional education offices evaluate schools every one to three years. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act requires inspectors to focus on teaching and learning methods, implementation of the curriculum, educational activities, and achievement. The Minister or the regional superintendent can add other focus areas if they choose. Since 2012, regional education offices have had greater autonomy in school evaluation, part of a broader trend toward increased local control. Regional education offices are responsible for organizing inspections and selecting teams of inspectors (usually composed of experienced teachers and school leaders) with the option to seek additional support from the Ministry. Regional offices do not use school reviews punitively; instead, they give struggling schools advice on how to improve. The results of school evaluations are reported publicly.

Teacher Accountability

Principals evaluate all teachers annually within guidelines set at the national level. Schools use the results of these evaluations to guide promotion decisions (for example, to Master Teacher, a leadership role), award performance-based pay, and help identify appropriate professional learning opportunities. Evaluations also inform decisions about periodic rotation of teachers among schools, which is required for all teachers in public schools. In addition to feedback from the principal, teachers receive evaluation feedback from other teachers, students, and parents. This feedback informs the development of teacher professional learning plans but is not used punitively.

Foundation of Supports

Supports for Young Children and Their Families

Korea has struggled with declining fertility rates in recent years: the average number of children per woman fell below one in 2018, a record low since the government began collecting data in 1970 and well below the OECD average of 1.7. In response, the government has dramatically expanded supports for young children and their families.

Korea provides new parents with 90 days of maternity leave, fully paid by employers for the first 60 days and then subsidized by the government, and 10 days of employer-paid paternity leave (increased from three days in 2019). In addition, each parent is entitled to one year of government-subsidized parental leave, paid at 80 percent of salary for the first nine months and 40 percent for the last three months. In 2019, the government introduced a new benefit allowing each parent to work reduced hours for an additional year after a child's birth while receiving 80 percent of their full salary. Parents can take off one to five hours each day, for which the government subsidizes employers.

The government has made a concerted effort to increase the historically low share of fathers taking leave, in hopes that more evenly distributed childcare responsibilities will encourage more women to have children. Measures include the 2014 increase in the monthly parental leave payment if a second parent takes leave; the 2019 increase in the duration of paid paternity leave; and the 2020 law allowing both parents to take parental leave simultaneously. , Korea has seen progress, with the number of fathers taking leave increasing by 26 percent in 2019 compared to the prior year.

In addition to leave policies, Korea provides ongoing financial support to all families of young children. All expectant parents receive a "Citizen-Happiness Voucher" to cover expenses related to pregnancy and childbirth. In 2018, a monthly child allowance was introduced for children up to age 6 in all but the highest-earning families, and in 2019, the allowance was expanded to cover all families with children up to age 7, regardless of income.

In 2013-14, the Korean government introduced the Nuri initiative, a set of policies designed to expand access to and increase the quality of childcare and early childhood education. Through the Nuri initiative, every family with children up to age 2 receives an "i(Child)-Happiness" card providing subsidies to pay for full-day care in childcare centers, which are overseen by the Ministry of Health and Welfare. The vast majority of childcare centers are privately operated, but the Ministry has set a national cap on fees for both public and private centers in order to ensure affordability. All programs for children up to age 2 follow Korea's National Standard Child Care Curriculum. About 56 percent of children ages 0-2 are enrolled in childcare in Korea, significantly above the OECD average of 35 percent. Enrollment in childcare increased significantly from 2000 through 2014 but has levelled off since then.

National Health Insurance, Korea's mandatory public health insurance, provides health care coverage for nearly all families. In 2019, the government announced that routine health care costs would be reduced and nearly eliminated for infants up to age 1. Among other programs focusing on maternal and child health, the Nutrition Plus project provides nutritional services for pregnant women and young children identified as needing support based on factors like low birth weight.

Supports for School Aged Children

Students from immigrant families and from North Korea have access to targeted counseling and welfare services, and the government has instituted a "Global Bridge" program for multicultural students, defined in Korea as children with one Korean parent and one foreign parent. There are about 100,000 multicultural students in Korea, or about 1.7 percent of the student population. The Global Bridge program, which selects 100 multicultural students to participate each year, is intended to provide connections between Korea and students' home countries. The Ministry of Education Support Plan for Multicultural Education details additional strategies for supporting students from diverse backgrounds. Supports include mentorship from university students able to speak students' first languages; Korean language and culture classes; curriculum development in areas such as foreign language or "global citizenship education"; improved career education and counseling; relevant teacher training in teacher preparation programs and in-service professional learning; and increased support for Local Centers for Multicultural Education to facilitate coordination among community organizations. The government provided US$16 million (19 billion KRW) for support of the plan in 2017.

The government has also aimed to reduce family spending on private tutoring, which is a source of income-based inequality in Korea. Efforts have included limiting operating hours and subsidizing after-school tutoring in schools as an alternative to . In addition, in 2014 the government passed the Special Act on the Normalization of Public Education and Regulation of Pre-curriculum Education, which requires that school lessons and assessments cover only what has been taught in school. , In addition, the government has increased the amount of no-cost supplementary material available on the Educational Broadcasting System television network and Internet portal. Regional education offices in Seoul and elsewhere have also imposed curfews on and limited operating. The goal is to ensure that basic education does not require or encourage students to pursue private tutoring. Education spending from private sources as a share of GDP declined by more than 40 percent in Korea from 2005 to 2015.

The "Dream Start" program, operated through the Ministry of Health and Welfare, provides wraparound services-including case management and home visits-for children from birth to age 12 who may need additional supports, such as those from low-income families.

Learning System

Preschool programs in Korea serve children ages 3-5. Participation is nearly universal, with about 95 percent of three- to five-year-olds enrolled in preschool as of 2017. About half of preschools are public and half are private.

Since 2012, all Korean preschool programs have followed the national preschool curriculum, known as the Nuri Curriculum, whether they are offered in kindergartens (which only serve children ages 3-5 and are overseen by the Ministry of Education) or childcare centers (which serve children ages 0-5 and are overseen by the Ministry of Health and Welfare). The Nuri Curriculum replaced separate curricula for childcare centers and kindergartens, with the goal of ensuring a common educational experience for all children ages 3-5. The Nuri Curriculum emphasizes experiential and play-based learning in five learning areas: physical activities, health, and safety; communication; social relationships; arts experience; and inquiries into nature. It was designed to align to both the National Standard Child Care Curriculum, which applies to programs for children up to age 2, and the primary school curriculum.

Under what is known as the Nuri Initiative, since 2012-13 the Korean government has provided substantial subsidies to cover early childhood education for all children up to age 5, regardless of household income or background. Children ages 3-5 are entitled to a subsidy of US$170 (200,000 KRW) per month, intended to cover half-day preschool. However, preschool providers often charge fees for additional services, such as after-school care; these fees are capped for most types of preschool providers, but not for private kindergartens.

Primary and Secondary Education

System Structure

Children between the ages of 6 and 15 are required to attend school in Korea. There are six years of primary school, three years of lower secondary school, and three years of upper secondary school, which is either general or vocational in focus.

Most students attend their local primary school. Since the 1970s, Korea has had an equalization policy, which aims to reduce competition for admission to prestigious secondary schools. Students in "equalization zones" are admitted to school by lottery rather than using entrance exams. These zones cover all lower secondary schools and about 60 percent of upper secondary schools. In these areas, there is no entrance exam for lower secondary school and upper secondary schools can only use entrance exams to set a minimum competency level rather than to rank students for admission. Students who meet the minimum standards on the exams are admitted by lottery. Some parents have perceived these reforms as a lowering of standards and a set of alternative upper secondary schools-specialty schools and autonomous schools-has developed partially in response. Specialty schools focus on a particular area, such as foreign language, science, or the arts, and autonomous schools adhere to the national curriculum but have flexibility to design their instructional program. Neither specialty nor autonomous schools are part of the equalization policy so they set their own entry criteria and are generally more competitive than other upper secondary schools. In 2019, the Ministry announced plans to convert about one-third of autonomous schools and all specialty schools focused on certain subjects into regular upper secondary schools by 2025 to promote equity and reduce competition. The equalization policy applies to all schools in major metropolitan areas but smaller cities and rural areas can choose whether to participate.

Ninety-five percent of students complete upper secondary school in Korea. About 75 percent of these students attend academic upper secondary schools, The remaining 25 percent attend vocational upper secondary schools. In the late 1990s, roughly 40 percent of students attended vocational schools, so this represents a significant decline.

Standards and Curriculum

Korean schools follow a national curriculum developed by the Ministry of Education and revised every five to 10 years. The 2015 revision will be fully implemented during the 2020-21 school year. It adds both general and subject-specific key competencies to the curriculum. There are six general competencies (self-management; knowledge information; creative thinking; socio-emotional; communications; and civics) and additional subject competencies. For example, creative thinking is a general competency, while the ability to analyze and interpret historical materials is a history-specific competency. The 2015 revision also granted schools more autonomy to add curricular content that addresses the specific needs and interests of their students, such as arts classes or additional language classes. In addition to its focus on key competencies, the 2015 curriculum for both primary and secondary schools includes Creative Experiential Learning (CEL) activities, which are hands-on activities such as participation in clubs, volunteering, and career exploration. CEL activities account for about 10-15 percent of curriculum time, depending on grade level.

In grades 1 and 2 of primary school, the curriculum includes Korean and mathematics, as well as subjects called "Good Life," "Wise Life," and "Happy Life." These subjects focus on the transition to school life and include basic study skills, problem-solving, creativity, and learning through play. Science, social studies/moral education, English, physical education, and music and the arts are added for the upper primary school grades.

In lower secondary school, subjects include Korean, mathematics, social studies/moral education, science/information technology, physical education, English, music and the arts, as well as some elective courses. Since 2013, students have also had an "Exam-Free Semester," which is designed to give students time each day to study either a non-traditional course or to design their own independent study course. During this semester, there are no traditional paper examinations even for regular classes so as not to distract from the non-traditional activities. In 2017, the government expanded the Free Semester to a full year, typically offered in grade 7.

Required subjects in academic upper secondary schools include Korean; mathematics; English; Korean history; social studies/moral education; science; physical education; the arts; and life and liberal arts, which includes technology, home economics, Chinese characters, a second foreign language, and liberal arts. Depending on the subject, students take all or some of their required credits as elective courses. Vocational school students take about 40 percent general subjects and 60 percent vocational subjects, in addition to CEL activities and a set of school-developed courses, which each school designs according to its students' aptitudes and career plans. In vocational schools, students take a common set of academic courses in their first year, a combination of academic and vocational courses in their second year, and specialized courses in their third year.

Since 2000, Korea has offered extra-curricular advanced courses for eligible students as well as a small number of specialized schools for gifted students.

Assessment and Qualifications

Korea assesses its students at all levels using school-developed tests. The national curriculum specifies that tests should focus on complex tasks, such as essays, rather than multiple-choice questions.

Korea monitors its education system using the National Assessment of Educational Achievement (NAEA). Originally, the government administered the NAEA only to a sample of students, but in 2008 all students in grades 6, 9, and 11 took tests in Korean, mathematics, social studies, science, and English. The government reversed course in 2013, eliminating the grade 6 tests and reducing the number of tested subjects in grades 9 and 11 to Korean, mathematics, and English. In an effort to reduce testing-related pressure, the government scaled back the NAEA again in 2017, returning to sample-based administration. The social studies and science tests have been reintroduced at grade 9.

The government uses NAEA results to direct support to schools and inform policy at the Ministry level. A survey of students, teachers, and principals administered alongside the NAEA is used in conjunction with the test results to inform education policymaking. The survey collects information on variables affecting achievement such as teacher and principal characteristics such as seniority or specialization and how much time students spend reading or using technology outside of school. In addition, about half of schools report using NAEA results for student placement in subjects that are differentiated for different levels.

A second assessment, the Subject Learning Diagnostic Test (SLDT), tests students in grades 3-9 in Korean, mathematics, social studies, science, and English. Regional offices of education administer the test nationwide to help schools identify and support struggling students.

Students from academic or vocational upper secondary schools who want to continue to junior college, polytechnic college, or university must take the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT). To prepare, most Korean students take preparatory classes outside of school in . This intense focus on the CSAT has led to a spate of reforms focused on broadening the range of criteria considered in university admissions. In 2013, the government introduced the University Entrance Simplification Policy, and Korea has since made the CSAT optional for candidates transferring from the workforce to certain colleges and universities; this is part of an effort to encourage students to try work before going directly to higher education. Responding to concerns that expanded criteria for university entrance could make admissions less transparent, the Ministry of Education announced it would increase from 22 percent to a minimum of 30 percent the proportion of students admitted to universities based on the CSAT alone in 2018. Starting in 2022, Korea also plans to lower the number of CSAT subjects graded on a curve in order to reduce competition among students.

With about 70 percent of its students completing some form of postsecondary education, Korea has the highest postsecondary education completion rate in the OECD.

Learning Supports

Supports for Struggling Students

Korea has a variety of supports in place for students who struggle academically. Students who want to drop out of school must first complete a mandatory waiting period. During this time they have access to career counseling and alternative education classes leading to an upper secondary school diploma. In 2016, the Ministry of Education announced a plan to expand access to alternative education classes by nearly 10 percent. The Ministry of Education also shares the academic history of students who have dropped out of school with the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, which operates a nationwide network of about 200 "K-Dream" youth support centers. K-Dream centers help connect students with personalized supports, including psychological counseling, career counseling, health services, education, and training. The share of Korean students who do not complete upper secondary school declined from 8 percent in 2013 to 4.6 percent in 2017. In 2019, the city of Seoul announced a plan to provide students who have dropped out with a subsidy of US$170 (200,000 KRW) per month that they can use for online courses, meals, and transportation to enable them to finish school.

Korea has also implemented school-level supports aimed specifically at improving student achievement. In 2008, the government announced the "Zero Plan for Below-Basic Students," an effort to provide targeted support to raise achievement for the lowest-performing students. As part of that plan, the Ministry created the Schools for Improvement program, which began in 2010. The program identified schools with relatively high shares of low-performing students on Korea's National Assessment of Educational Achievement (NAEA) and provided extra funding, assistant teachers, and an extended academic year to those schools. The share of students performing "Below Basic" declined significantly following the introduction of the "Zero Plan" in 2008. By 2012, the share of students scoring "Below Basic" was less than 1 percent at the primary level and less than 4 percent at the secondary level.

In 2013, amid concerns about an overemphasis on testing, the Ministry revamped its approach to raising student achievement. It eliminated the grade 6 NAEA and created a new program for primary and lower secondary schools, called Do-Dream Schools, to provide more holistic support to students. The Ministry selects Do-Dream Schools using multiple indicators of student achievement, including school-based assessments and teacher recommendations. The Ministry also considers factors such as socioeconomic status and emotional or behavioral needs of the student body. School participation is voluntary. , Each Do-Dream School receives funding to provide parent and student counseling, after-school academic or enrichment programming, and other supports. Do-Dream Teams of teachers, school leaders, and other support specialists such as school nurses, work with students to improve their academic performance. As of 2015, there were more than 1,000 Do-Dream Schools in Korea, about 10 percent of all primary and lower secondary schools. While NAEA testing at grades 9 and 11 was scaled back to a sample basis in 2017, NAEA results are still used to identify secondary schools with students in need of enhanced support. ,

Special Education

The Ministry of Education requires at least one special school in each province to serve students with special educational needs. Students with special needs make up roughly one percent of the student population in Korea. Most special schools are comprehensive, serving students of all ages who need the most intensive supports (about 30 percent of all special needs students). Students with mild to moderate needs are encouraged to remain in mainstream schools, either enrolled in special classes or in a combination of special and mainstream classes. The number of special classrooms within mainstream schools has increased by more than 40 percent since 2007. That year, the Ministry of Education instituted a program intended to integrate special needs education into mainstream education as much as possible. This program created additional jobs for special education teachers in mainstream schools and expanded professional learning opportunities for mainstream teachers to prepare them to work with students with special needs.

Digital Platforms and Resources

Korea's public Educational Broadcasting System (EBS), originally established in the 1950s to provide educational television programming, has since expanded its mission to include online teaching and learning. Today, EBS has multiple online channels broadcasting lessons aligned to the national curriculum across grade levels. EBS also provides free online resources to help students prepare for the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) at the end of upper secondary school. These resources form part of the government's drive for greater equity around standardized test preparation.

Teachers in Korea also have access to digital resource libraries and other technology tools designed to support online lesson design. These are generally operated by the Korea Education and Research Information Service (KERIS), an organization under the Ministry of Education that promotes the integration of information and communication technologies in education and academic research. They include EduNet T-Clear ("Teacher-Curriculum Learning, Evaluation, and Activity Resources"), a website that provides digital teaching and learning resources, as well as a set of interactive digital textbooks. KERIS also operates two online learning platforms, Wedorang and e-Hakseupteo. Wedorang allows teachers to set up online classrooms and communicate with students, while e-Hakseupteo can be used to share assignments with students and create portfolios and records of student learning progress. In March 2020, in response to coronavirus-related school closures, KERIS launched a new site known as School-On, which allows primary and lower secondary school teachers to share their own digital teaching and learning resources with each other.

Career and Technical Education

Governance and System Structure

The Ministry of Education oversees almost all aspects of vocational education for secondary school students, including setting policy, authorizing providers and programs, and developing the national curriculum for vocational subjects. Formerly, the Ministry of Education also oversaw development of occupational standards for its vocational education programs, but in 2010 Korea shifted to a unified set of occupational standards-known as the National Competency Standards-across all types of vocational education, including vocational training for adults. The Ministry of Employment and Labor assumed primary responsibility for developing and maintaining these standards, which are used in curriculum development for all vocational program types.

The Korea Research Institute for Vocational Education and Training (KRIVET) conducts research related to vocational education and training. The Prime Minister's office oversees the institute, which was founded in 1997.

Students first enter vocational education and training (VET) in upper secondary school.

In the 1970s and 1980s, roughly 50 percent of upper secondary school students enrolled in VET. Today that share has dropped by half, a decline often attributed to the expansion of higher education and the prestige attached to academic study. In Korea, university degrees have been perceived to offer the most secure pathway to high-paying jobs with major Korean companies. However, an oversupply of university graduates has created employment challenges for degree holders in recent years.

After graduating from upper secondary VET, students can go directly to work, apply to two- to three-year vocational programs at junior or polytechnic colleges, or apply to university. Junior colleges, which are private, and polytechnic colleges, which are public, offer similar programs, but with different tuition costs. Junior colleges and polytechnics also offer bachelor's and master's degree programs. Secondary school students must take the CSAT and apply for admission to any postsecondary option.

CTE Programs

Specialized upper secondary vocational schools account for almost all upper secondary VET enrollment. They offer a three-year program: year one is devoted to academic subjects; year two covers a combination of academic and vocational coursework; and year three focuses on specialized training in a vocational field such as manufacturing, information technology, or agriculture. Students can complete one semester of work-based learning during their third year. Schools determine which components of the national curriculum they will offer based on labor market needs. Teachers at specialized schools must be certified by colleges of education. About 84 percent of teachers are part-time, as most continue to work in their industry.

In 2010, the Ministry began the process of converting 50 specialized schools into Meister schools, modeled on the German Dual System. Meister schools account for about 5 percent of all upper secondary VET enrollment and are designed to prepare highly skilled workers ("masters") in industries of national or local strategic importance, such as electronics, energy, and robotics. Meister schools work directly with industry partners to develop their own curricula. They have competitive entrance requirements and guarantee employment to their graduates. Graduates are required to go directly into the workforce. After three years they may pursue further educational opportunities without needing to take the CSAT, and many do.

About 35 percent of upper secondary VET graduates continue to postsecondary education, in most cases in the junior college or polytechnic college system. Korea is concerned about an oversupply of higher education graduates, however, and is actively encouraging upper secondary VET graduates to join the workforce. Under the policy "Employment First, Advancement to University Later," Korea allows candidates to bypass the CSAT when applying to certain colleges and universities from the workforce. The number of students opting for work experience before continuing to further education almost doubled from 2013 to 2016.

Recent Reforms

During the past decade, Korea has sought to boost student interest in VET and better align VET programs and labor market needs. The Ministry wants to increase the share of students in vocational schools to 29 percent by 2022 and has put in place a series of reforms toward that end.

First, Korea increased the emphasis on career exploration in the primary and lower secondary curriculum to prepare students for the choice of VET in upper secondary school. For example, the 2013 Exam-Free Semester initiative specified that lower secondary schools can devote part of their free time to career exploration. Second, the Ministry of Employment and Labor developed National Competency Standards (NCS) in 24 broad industry areas. The NCS defined the competencies, from basic literacy to advanced expertise, for employment in those industries. The Ministry of Education has integrated the NCS into national curricula in vocational fields. Third, the government has worked to expand apprenticeship opportunities for students enrolled in specialized schools. A pilot "work and study" apprenticeship program for students in grades 11 and 12, introduced in 2014, had expanded to about 40 percent of all specialized schools by 2017. Korea is focused on lowering the cost to companies of apprenticeships and on building coordination between specialized schools and junior colleges so that students have clear pathways to continue their training within specific industry areas.

Teachers and Principals

Teacher Recruitment

Teaching is a high-status and well-paid job in Korea. Recruitment of teachers is very different for primary and secondary school teachers, however. Korea closely regulates the supply of primary school teachers, who are trained in only 13 institutions in the country; secondary school teachers are trained at a much broader set of institutions and programs. This has resulted in very competitive admission to primary school teaching programs with high job placement rates, and less competitive admission to secondary school teaching programs with much lower job placement rates. All teachers must pass an employment exam in order to work in public schools. Because of the oversupply of secondary school teachers, they must score very well on the employment exam to qualify for one of the limited spots, making hiring rather than school admission the key selection point. Indeed, only about one in five trained secondary school teachers work as teachers.

Teacher Preparation and Induction

Primary school teacher candidates in Korea are trained in undergraduate programs at 11 national universities of education, one public university, and one private university. Secondary school teacher candidates have more training options: undergraduate programs in a broader range of colleges and universities or programs at graduate schools of education. Most students enroll in undergraduate programs. The Korean government has set up an accreditation system for teacher preparation programs to try to maintain quality across institutions. As part of this system, it has required all programs to adhere to national curriculum standards and conducts periodic evaluations of these programs, tied to program funding.

Every teacher in Korea is required to have a subject major, which is listed on his or her teaching certificate. Teachers must earn about two-thirds of their credits in their subject majors and one-third of their credits in education. Subject major courses include content knowledge and content-specific pedagogy, while courses in education include educational theory and courses tailored to current social issues, as well as a practicum requirement. For primary school teacher candidates, the practicum component is typically nine to 10 weeks and includes observation practice, participation practice, teaching practice, and administrative work practice. For secondary school teachers, the practicum length varies, but undergraduate programs typically include four-week practicums. Once teachers have completed their training programs they receive a Grade II certificate, which qualifies them to work in a school.

Before applying for a teaching position, however, candidates must take a national employment exam. The exam has two parts: a written test that includes multiple-choice and essay questions, and an interview and demonstration lesson. The exam is highly competitive, and teachers are ranked based on their scores. Many teacher candidates hire private tutors to prepare for the exam.

Once teachers are hired, they go through three stages of school-based induction: pre-employment training, post-employment training, and follow-up training. The Ministry introduced a plan in 2016 to reduce new teachers' teaching hours to provide more time for this induction support. Pre-employment training typically lasts for two weeks and focuses on the practical elements of job preparation, like classroom management. This is followed by six months of on the job post-employment training, which is typically provided by principals, vice principals, and teacher mentors and involves instructional guidance and evaluation, classroom supervision, and instruction on clerical work and student guidance. Finally, during two weeks of follow-up training, new teachers share what they have learned through presentations, reports, or discussion with peers. Teachers can be upgraded to a Grade I certificate after three years of experience and 180 hours of required in-service qualification training. A Grade I certificate allows teachers to apply for leadership positions, such as principal or Master Teacher.

Preschool teacher preparation requirements vary depending on whether a childcare center or a kindergarten administers the program. Kindergarten teachers must complete at least a two-year college degree specializing in early childhood education, which leads to a Grade II teaching certificate. Preschool teachers working in childcare centers must complete a one-year training program after graduation from high school, which leads to a Grade III teaching certificate.

Teacher Career Progression

Teachers in Korea have three types of opportunities for promotion: becoming a Master Teacher, becoming a principal, or becoming an "education specialist," such as a school inspector or a research specialist. Teacher promotion on all tracks depends on a point system, with points accrued for years of teaching experience, performance on annual evaluations, and pursuit of professional learning opportunities, including required qualification training programs. Teachers can also earn points for specific forms of service, such as teaching in remote areas or in special education schools.

Korea piloted the Master Teacher designation in 2008 and implemented it nationwide in 2012. As of 2019, about 25 percent of primary and secondary school teachers in Korea were Master Teachers. Master Teachers continue teaching a reduced class schedule while taking on new responsibilities such as mentoring, leading professional learning experiences, and designing curriculum. To apply to become a Master Teacher, teachers must have a Grade I certificate,15 years of teaching experience and be recommended by their schools. Screening committees in each regional education office evaluate applicants by observing them teaching, reviewing their peer interview results, and conducting an in-depth interview. Master Teachers must also complete qualification training.

Competition to become a principal is quite fierce. Principals are responsible for school management, teacher supervision, and maintaining school facilities; the vice principal assists the principal in these duties. Principals and vice principals generally do not teach in Korea. The selection process is described below.

Specialist positions, such as school inspector or research specialist, require a minimum of eight years of teaching experience. Teachers promoted to these roles go on to work at either the Ministry of Education or regional education offices.

Korea also has performance-based pay. The system varies from school to school but is developed with guidance from the Ministry of Education. Pay raises depend on quality of instruction, time spent on student guidance, administrative contributions, and professional development pursued.

Part of the career progression for teachers in public schools is periodic rotation among schools. Every five years, a teacher must rotate to another school in the same region. As a result, teachers gain experience in a variety of settings over the course of their careers, and schools gain the expertise of teachers matched to their needs.

Teacher Development

In 2010 Korea implemented the Teacher Evaluation for Professional Development system. In this system, peers, school leaders, students, and parents all evaluate teacher performance; the results are then used to inform individualized professional learning plans. The highest-scoring teachers are eligible for research sabbaticals of up to one year, while struggling teachers may be required to pursue a certain number of hours or type of professional learning.

Professional learning opportunities are offered through both public and private providers, with private courses subject to government approval. Courses include training for specific qualifications, as well as in-service training and special training opportunities that can include research sabbaticals or study abroad. Recently there has been an emphasis on expanding teacher-led professional learning. For example, in order to prepare teachers to implement the 2015 revision of the national curriculum, the Ministry of Education trained 13,000 teachers to facilitate professional development sessions at the school level. As of 2017, the government had also budgeted a total of US$3.8 million (4 billion KRW) to support professional learning communities across the country. Because professional learning is worth points toward teacher promotion, there is a direct connection between teachers' participation in professional learning experiences and career advancement.

The national Professional Development Master Plan, developed in 2015, lays out a comprehensive structure for professional learning throughout the teaching career. It recommends specific professional learning for educators according to their stage of career development, from beginning teachers to Master Teachers and school leaders. Principals can also support professional development by recommending particular programs to teachers and using school funds to subsidize participation.

Principal Recruitment, Preparation and Development

School leadership positions are prestigious and in high demand. Traditionally, regional education officials pre-select future school leaders for promotion in order to ensure a pool of high-quality candidates, although this is changing. The selection process is shifting towards competitive recruitment of candidates who are ranked by points earned through experience, performance, and training. Principals in Korea accumulate a significant amount of classroom experience-an average of almost 30 years-prior to becoming school leaders.

Once selected, principal candidates participate in a government-funded training program, which leads to a principal qualification. Ministry guidelines specify a program length of 180 hours over 30 or more days. Seventy to 80 percent of program content must be related to school administration/management, with the remaining courses focused on broader education topics. The government also provides training for vice principal qualifications. Vice principal used to be a required step toward becoming a principal, but this is no longer the case.

School leaders are employees of the central government and generally may serve two terms at any one school for a maximum of eight years, after which they can request a transfer to a new school or are assigned to one. Rural and very small schools are given priority when requesting a new principal through this transfer system. Some regions are beginning to allow principals to serve for more than two terms.

The National Teacher Evaluation for Professional Development System includes guidelines for professional development for school leaders. Like teachers, principals use their evaluation results (determined through input from teachers and parents) to develop personal professional learning plans.

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The Republic of Korea has ranked among the top-performing nations throughout PISA's administration, despite small dips in 2009 and 2012. Korea's performance is also among the most equitable of OECD countries, although 2018 saw a slight increase in the gap between high- and low-performing students, due to a drop in scores of the lowest performers.

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https://wenr.wes.org/2018/10/education-in-south-korea

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Deepti Mani, Research Associate, WES, and Stefan Trines, Research Editor, WENR
This education profile describes recent trends in South Korean education and student mobility and provides an overview of the structure of the education system of South Korea. It replaces an earlier version by Hanna Park and Nick Clark.
Introduction: The Priority of Education in the World's Most Educated Society

At the tertiary level, Korea's universities have less of a resounding global reputation; nevertheless the country was ranked 22nd among 50 countries in the 2018 Ranking of National Higher Education Systems by the Universitas 21 network of research universities. The Economist Intelligence Unit, meanwhile, recently ranked Korea 12th out of 35 countries in its "Worldwide Educating for the Future Index," tied with the United States.

Korea's high educational attainment levels are but one sign of the country's singular transformation and meteoric economic rise over the past 70 years. Along with the other Asian "tiger economies" of Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan, Korea represents one of the most remarkable economic success stories of the 20th century, envied by many developing countries up to today.

A laser focus on education was an important pillar of this extraordinary economic rise. In the 1980s, Korea's government began to strategically invest in human capital development, research, and technological innovation. Korean households simultaneously devoted much of their resources to education, thereby fueling a drastic expansion in education participation. Between the early 1980s and the mid-2000s, the country's tertiary gross enrollment ratio increased fivefold, while the number of students in higher education jumped from 539,000 in 1980 to 3.3 million in 2015, per UNESCO data.

In fact, it's hard to find another country in the world that places greater emphasis on education than South Korea. Educational attainment in contemporary Korea is of paramount social importance and strongly correlated with social mobility, income levels, and positions of power. Graduates of Korea's top three universities dominate the country and occupy the majority of high-ranking government posts and management positions in Korea's powerful business conglomerates ( chaebols).

By some accounts, many Korean children spend 16 hours or more a day at school and in after-class prep schools, called hagwons. A 2014 survey by Korea's National Youth Policy Institute found that nearly 53 percent of high school students didn't get enough sleep because they studied at night; 90 percent of respondents said that they had less than two hours of spare time on weekdays.

Observers, thus, have described Korean society as having an "almost cult-like devotion to learning," with students being " test-aholics" steered by "tutor-aholic" parents. Studying long hours at hagwons has become so ubiquitous and excessive that Korean authorities in the 2000's deemed it necessary to impose curfews, usually at 10 p.m., and patrol prep schools in areas like Seoul's Gangnam district, where many of these schools are concentrated-only to drive nighttime cram classes underground behind closed doors.

Social pressures to succeed in the labor market, meanwhile, have given rise to a phenomenon called " employment cosmetics"-one of the driving factors behind Korea's boom in cosmetic surgery, since job applicants are commonly required to submit an ID photo, and many employers factor physical attractiveness into their hiring decisions. In another sign of competition at any cost, private household debt in Korea is soaring, driven in part by surging expenditures on education and private tutoring.

While a university degree used to be a solid foundation for social success in Korea, observers have noted that many current graduates lack the skills needed for employability in a modern information society, and that the education system is too narrowly focused on university education, while underemphasizing vocational training. Korea's Confucian-influenced system has also been criticized for relying too much on rote memorization and university entrance prep at the expense of creativity and independent thought.

Notably, and perhaps counterintuitively, the growing unemployment rates among recent university graduates and the increasingly ferocious competition in Korea's education system exist despite Korea being one of the fastest-aging societies in the world. The country's fertility rates are in rapid decline, and its college-age population is shrinking.

Education Reforms Under Korea's New Government: Creating a Less Competitive System

At present, there is already adamant political pushback in Korea against the current state of affairs, notably the rampant favoritism and nepotism in the hiring practices of Korea's all-powerful chaebols and corruption in the Korean government, laid bare in the criminal embezzlement scandal that led to the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye. Following the scandal, leftist President Moon Jae-in won a landslide election victory in May 2017 running on an anti-corruption platform that included promises to reform the education system and reduce youth unemployment.

Moon's bold education reform proposals seek to eventually integrate all state universities into one large university system. The goal is to reduce competition between institutions and equalize the chances of graduates in Korea's cutthroat labor market, which is heavily skewed toward graduates of Seoul's top universities.

The government also plans to reduce university admissions fees, and decongest school curricula and make them more flexible by introducing more elective subjects. Elite private high schools (autonomous schools) and international schools that teach foreign curricula are slated to be turned into tuition-free schools that teach standard national curricula in order to rein in elite schools.

To ensure the longevity of the reforms irrespective of changes in government, they are intended to be implemented by a new independent state education committee, rather than the politically controlled Ministry of Education (MOE). That said, as of this writing no concrete steps have yet been taken to form this new committee.

But the Moon administration is certainly pushing ahead with reforms. Current policy initiatives focus on decreasing competition in university admissions, thereby making access to education and employment more socially equitable, and reducing the influence of prestigious universities, notably the country's top three institutions: Seoul National University, Korea University, and Yonsei University, collectively referred to as "SKY universities." Since admissions tests at top universities are so demanding that they can only be passed with the help of extensive private tutoring, the government in 2017 ordered several universities to ease their admission tests-a move intended to curb private tutoring and improve the chances of students from low-income households, who are unable to afford expensive prep schools.

Other recent reforms include the adoption of "blind hiring" procedures in the public sector -a practice the government wants to extend to the private sector as well. Under the new guidelines, applicants no longer have to reveal the name of their university or GPAs on their application, nor provide personal information about age, weight, or family background, or submit a head shot.

The goal of the reforms is to make hiring decisions based mostly on specific job-related skills. Some private employers have started to hire candidates based on audition-type presentations or skills examinations, rather than academic and personal background, but there is nevertheless strong resistance to blind hiring from companies and privileged graduates of top universities. President Moon's education reform agenda is no doubt ambitious and groundbreaking, but it remains to be seen if the government can prevail in realizing all its objectives, given the vested interests of elitist "old-boy networks" in chaebols and top universities.

Outbound Student Mobility

Despite a recent slump in overseas enrollments by Korean students, Korea is one of the top sending countries of international students worldwide after China, India and Germany. The number of Koreans enrolled in degree programs abroad peaked at 128,994 in 2011, after doubling from 64,943 in 1997, according to data provided by the UNESCO Institute of Statistics ( UIS). Since then, the number of degree-seeking Korean international students has decreased by 15.8 percent to an estimated 108,608 students in 2017.

Trends in Korean outbound mobility are driven by a number of influences, including economic factors, increased participation rates and demand-supply gaps in higher education, demographic trends, and the rising demand for English language education.

In the decades leading up to the 2011 peak, the number of Korean youths completing upper-secondary school surged, drastically increasing the pool of potential international students, while simultaneously exacerbating supply shortages that made access to quality university education increasingly difficult and competitive. Robust economic growth and rising prosperity simultaneously allowed more people to afford an overseas education.

The rapid expansion of the higher education system also led to the creation of growing numbers of private institutions of lesser quality with only a minority of the very best students admitted to the top institutions. This trend incentivized greater numbers of students to pursue education abroad, especially since Korean society came to value English-language education. These developments created a fertile environment for Korean outbound student mobility.

Korea's demographic decline has since shrunk the college-age population and reduced the number of Korean students, affecting not only domestic enrollments, but also the total number of students heading overseas: The country's outbound student mobility ratio has dropped from 3.8 percent in 2011 to 3.3 percent in 2016. That said, the current downturn is not only due to demographic change.

Reasons for the Slowdown in Outbound Student Flows

One of the reasons for this contraction is that it has become increasingly difficult for Koreans to afford an expensive overseas education. Korea's economic expansion has lost steam in recent years, making double-digit growth rates a thing of the past-GDP growth dropped from 6.5 percent in 2010 to 3 percent in 2017 ( World Bank).

In addition, unemployment among university graduates is not only high, it exceeds unemployment rates among graduates of vocational high schools, leaving many families doubting if an expensive university degree is still worth it, according to MGI.

With respect to overseas education, such considerations are likely influenced by the fact that some Korean employers are reluctant to hire graduates of foreign schools. In fact, a foreign degree can be a liability in Korea's hierarchical work environment. Graduates of overseas schools lack the social connections domestic students are able to develop-which are so critical to finding employment in Korea. As the New York Times put it, the "edge that a foreign degree gives a South Korean graduate" has worn off in the wake of ever-increasing numbers of Koreans earning foreign degrees. Many Korean families now worry "that overseas study is no longer the guarantee of economic security that it once was."

Moreover, since Korean universities increasingly offer English-taught programs, there is less incentive to study abroad to improve English skills. Dwindling student numbers, meanwhile, have narrowed the demand and supply gap in higher education to the extent that the Korean government is now forced to close down growing numbers of universities. This is bound to affect cost-benefit calculations, especially since the Korean government is simultaneously undertaking heightened efforts to improve the quality of its higher education institutions (HEIs), while ramping up scholarship funding.

Korean Students in the U.S.

The U.S. is by far the most popular study destination among Korean students. Fully 57 percent of Koreans enrolled in degree programs abroad studied in the U.S. in 2017, followed by Japan (12 percent), Australia (6 percent), the United Kingdom (5 percent), and Canada (4.5 percent), as per UIS data. France, Malaysia, New Zealand, China, and Italy are other top destination countries for Koreans.

In the U.S., Korea remains the third-largest sending country of international students after China and India, despite a significant drop in enrollments in recent years. According to the Open Doors data of the Institute of International Education (IIE), Korean enrollments declined by almost 22 percent since the 2008/09 academic year and stood at 58,663 in 2016/17. Year-over-year enrollment growth from Korea has persistently declined since 2011/12, whereas year-over-year growth for China and India increased by approximately 12 percent and 7 percent, respectively.

Further declines are likely. According to SEVIS student visa data provided by the Department of Homeland Security, the number of Koreans holding active F and M student visas decreased from 71,206 to 67,326 between March 2017 and March 2018.

The most popular fields of study of Korean students in the U.S. are business and management, engineering, social sciences, and fine and applied arts, according to Open Doors. Most Korean students study at the undergraduate level. Between 2015/16 and 2016/17, undergraduate enrollments declined by 8 percent while graduate enrollments only dropped by about 1 percent. However, 51 percent of students were still enrolled at the undergraduate level, compared with 28 percent at the graduate level and 21 percent in Optional Practical Training and non-degree programs.

By most accounts, Korean students are interested in studying in the U.S. because of the standing and reputation of U.S. institutions in world university rankings. They also want to learn English, acquire experience abroad, and improve their employment prospects in Korea. However, as mentioned before, the return on investment in a foreign degree has diminished, and Korean students are increasingly strapped for funds. Rising tuition costs in the U.S. therefore don't work in favor of increased student inflows from Korea.

Other Destination Countries

The picture in other destination countries is mixed. Per UIS, the number of Korean students enrolled in degree programs in Japan has plunged by more than 50 percent since 2011 and decreased from 25,961 students to only 12,951 students in 2016, although Korea is still the fourth-largest sending country in Japan overall. Australia, likewise, saw Korean enrollments in degree programs drop by 23 percent between 2011 and 2016 despite a record-breaking surge in international enrollments in general. According to the latest Australian government data, this downward trend is currently continuing.

China, on the other hand, is quickly becoming a popular destination. According to IIE's Project Atlas, the number of Korean students in China increased by more than 11 percent since 2013 and currently stands at 70,540. Since China is Korea's most important trading partner, fluency in Mandarin is a considerable asset in Korea's job market. As NAFSA's International Educator notes, geographic proximity, cultural similarities, and lower tuition costs than in Western countries are other draws for Korean students. Korea is currently the largest sending country of international students to China, as per Project Atlas. (Note that Project Atlas data, like other data cited below, are not directly comparable to UIS data, since they are based a different method for counting international students).

Despite the growing attractiveness of China, English remains the most coveted foreign language for Koreans, and Korea is one of the largest markets for English language training (ELT) worldwide. Instead of enrolling in academic degree programs in countries like the U.S., growing numbers of Koreans now seek to improve their English skills in more affordable ELT schools in places like Malta or the Philippines.

Korean Students in Canada

The number of Korean students in Canada has declined significantly over the past decade. In 2000, Korea used to be the largest sending country of international students, but it has since been taken over by China and was in 2010 pushed to third place amid surging enrollments from India. According to statistics from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), there were 23,050 Korean students in Canada in 2017-25 percent less than in 2007 when enrollments peaked at 36,800. However, since 2015 Korean enrollments are back on a growth trajectory and have most recently increased by 9 percent between 2016 and 2017.

The reasons for this reversal are unclear, but the shift in trends coincided with Canada expanding its admission quotas for skilled immigrants-a factor that may have played at least some role in attracting more Koreans to the country. Korea is the 10th largest country of origin of recent immigrants in Canada; 6.5 percent of Korean international students in Canada transitioned to permanent residency in 2015 (the fourth largest group after Chinese, Filipinos, and Indians). The growing unpopularity of the U.S. in the Trump era, and opportunities to participate in research collaborations and scholarship programs, may also have played a role. ELT, on the other hand, doesn't appear to be a factor-Korean ELT enrollments have remained flat between 2014 and 2017, despite increased recruitment efforts by Canadian ELT providers.

Inbound Student Mobility

Korea currently pursues an internationalization strategy that seeks to increase the number of international students in the country to 200,000 by 2023. Attracting more international students is considered necessary to compensate for declines in domestic enrollments and to strengthen the international competitiveness of Korea's education system. Various measures have been adopted to achieve these objectives. They range from scholarship programs and marketing campaigns, to the easing of student visa requirements and restrictions on post-study work, as well as allowing Korean universities to set up departments and programs specifically for international students.

In Brief: The Education System of South Korea

Korea's education system underwent a tremendous expansion since the end of the Korean War. In 1945, Korea had an estimated adult literacy rate of only 22 percent. Less than 2 percent of the population was enrolled in higher education. Today, the country has achieved universal adult literacy, estimated to range between 98 and 100 percent, and the tertiary gross enrollment ratio stands at a lofty 93 percent (2015).

Influenced by the U.S. occupation of South Korea, the country adopted a school system patterned after the U.S. system: It comprises six years of elementary education and six years of secondary education, divided into three years of middle school and three years of high school.

In the 1950s, elementary education was made compulsory for all children, which led to the universalization of elementary education by the 1960s. Beginning in 1985, the length of compulsory education was then extended by another three years, and all children in Korea are now mandated to stay in school until the end of grade nine (age 15). In reality, however, this minimum requirement is of little practical relevance in present-day Korea. As of 2014, 98 percent of Koreans went on to upper-secondary and completed high school at minimum. The advancement rate from lower-secondary middle school to upper-secondary high school stood at 99 percent as early as 1996.

The aging of the population has since eased pressures somewhat and led to significantly lower numbers of children enrolling in the school system-leading to other problems, discussed below. According to UNESCO data, the number of elementary students dropped from 4 million in 2005 to 2.7 million in 2015, while the number of upper-secondary students recently decreased from close to 2 million in 2009 to 1.8 million in 2015.

This demographic shift has caused the closure of thousands of schools throughout Korea, almost 90 percent of them located in rural regions, which are increasingly being bled out by a rapid out-migration to the cities. As the New York Times noted in 2015, since 1982 "... nearly 3,600 schools have closed across South Korea, most of them in rural towns, for lack of children. Today, many villages look like ghost towns, with ... once-bustling schools standing in weedy ruins ...." However, despite this demographic shift, Korea in 2015 still had some of the largest lower-secondary class sizes in the OECD, as well as an above-average teacher-to-student ratio in upper-secondary education-circumstances that are likely due to rapidly growing enrollments in urban areas.

Traditionally, Korean schools have been segregated by sex-coeducational schools did not begin to emerge until the 1980s. Only 5 percent of Korea's schools were coeducational as of 1996. The number of coeducational schools has since increased significantly, but the majority of Korea's schools are still single-sex. Even at coeducational schools, individual classes may still be taught separately for girls and boys. In Seoul, about one-third of high schools are coeducational with pupils in the city being randomly assigned to single-sex and coeducational schools.

Administration of the Education System

Korea has 17 administrative divisions: nine provinces, six metropolitan cities-which have equal status to the provinces-and Seoul, which is designated as a special city. In addition there is the special autonomous city of Sejong, which was recently created to become Korea's new administrative capital in an attempt to reduce the influence of Seoul, Korea's towering economic and administrative center. Another goal is to stimulate economic development in other parts of the country. Sejong City now houses the majority of government ministries and agencies, including the administrative headquarters of the MOE, which controls most aspects of education.

According to the MOE's website, it "plans and coordinates educational policies, formulates policies that govern the primary, secondary, and higher educational institutes, publishes and approves textbooks, provides administrative and financial support for all levels of the school system, supports local education offices and national universities, operates the teacher training system and is responsible for overseeing lifelong education and developing human resource policies."

Korea has historically had a centralized system of government. However, Korea's administrative divisions and municipal governments have over the decades been given much greater autonomy in terms of budgeting and administration of the school system in order to better accommodate local needs. There were 17 provincial and metropolitan offices and 176 district offices administering education at the local level in 2016. That said, local autonomy is limited and overall education policies are set at the national level, while higher education remains under the auspices of the national MOE.

In devising policies, the MOE relies on advice from the Educational Policy Advisory Council, a body consisting of rotating experts from various fields in education. The quality assurance and accreditation of universities falls under the purview of the Korean Council for University Education ( KCUE), an independent, non-governmental university association.

Academic Calendar and Language of Instruction

The academic year in Korea runs from March to February, divided by a summer break in July/August and a winter break in December/January. Korean children attend classes 5.5 days a week and spend about 220 days a year in school versus 175 to 180 days in the United States. The academic calendar at universities is typically divided into two four-month semesters with a two-month break between each semester.

Korean is the language of instruction in schools, even though private international schools and certain specialized high schools offer English-medium instruction (EMI). In higher education, Korean is still predominant, but EMI has spread rapidly since the 1990s, when the Korean government started to encourage universities to offer English-taught classes. Some universities, like the Pohang University of Science and Technology, now teach more than 90 percent of their courses in English. About 30 percent of lectures at Korea's top 10 universities were taught in English as of 2013-a sign that EMI is being pursued vigorously by Korean universities, partially because it affects international university rankings and makes Korean institutions more attractive to international students.

Elementary Education

Elementary education is provided free of charge at public schools and is six years in duration. It starts at the age of six, even though gifted students may sometimes be allowed to enter at age five. Although preschool is not compulsory, about 90 percent of children age three to five attend it.

Many pupils attend private kindergartens, often for the entire day, but the government has over the past decades expanded public options, and since 2012/13 provided universal, free, half-day preschool programs, so as not to disadvantage children from lower-income households. Free public full-day programs are currently being planned as well.

Lower-Secondary Education (Middle School)

Lower-secondary education lasts three years (grades seven to nine) and concludes with the award of a certificate of graduation from middle school. The subjects taught are the same as in elementary education, except for the addition of either technical education or home science. Notably, pupils now enjoy a "free semester" in which they don't have to take written examinations or pass other school assessments-a change that was introduced to promote " happy education for all children."

Lower-secondary education is provided free of charge at both public and private schools and is open to all pupils who have completed elementary education-there are no entrance examinations. To avoid competition over admission into desired schools, the Korean government since the 1970s implemented a so-called school "equalization policy" that took admissions decisions away from schools and placed them under government control. Today, this policy covers all middle schools, which means that all elementary school graduates are being assigned to schools within their districts via a computerized lottery system. Private schools are mandated to teach the national curriculum and offer tuition-free education in return for receiving subsidies from the government. According to UNESCO, 18 percent of lower-secondary students and 43 percent of upper-secondary students were enrolled in private schools in 2015.

Upper-Secondary Education (High School)

Upper-secondary education in Korea is neither compulsory nor free. It is much more diversified than lower-secondary education. While all high school programs last for three years (grades 10 to 12), they are taught by a variety of different schools, such as general academic high schools and special-purpose high schools, that offer specialized education in areas like foreign languages, arts, sports, or science.

In addition, there are specialized vocational high schools that offer employment-geared education, as well as designated autonomous high schools, which are mostly privately run elite institutions that have greater autonomy over their curricula, and which were originally created to diversify school options in Korea.

However, the future of these autonomous institutions is currently uncertain. The Moon administration has criticized autonomous schools for being little more than exclusivist prep schools for admission into top universities, and seeks to convert them into regular schools. Autonomous schools are very expensive and elitist, admitting only the highest scoring students, and therefore seen as exacerbating social inequalities.

In 2016, 71.7 percent of upper-secondary students were enrolled in general academic schools, compared with 16.6 percent in specialized vocational schools and around 11.5 percent in autonomous schools and special-purpose schools, although these percentages fluctuate from year to year. Enrollments in vocational schools, for instance, have dropped drastically since the 1990s, presumably because of growing social preferences for university education and Korea's shift from an industrial to a service-based economy.

Admission requirements at Korean high schools vary and depend on the type and location of the school. Korean authorities have been less forceful in implementing school equalization for high schools than for middle schools-only about 60 percent of upper-secondary schools are currently located within so-called " equalization zones." In these districts, admission is based on a lottery system, provided that students pass a general competency examination. Outside of equalization zones, however, admission is highly competitive and driven by free market mechanisms, which means that eligibility is usually determined by GPAs and entrance examinations, as well as interviews or teacher recommendations.

General Academic High School

All students in general academic high schools study a common core curriculum in grade 10, which features largely the same subjects as the middle school curriculum. In grades 11 and 12, students then choose elective subjects in addition to common subjects like Korean, mathematics, English, and a second foreign language.

Until recently, students had to choose between a natural science-oriented stream and a liberal arts-focused stream, but these streams have been abolished under the current curriculum. In an attempt to make education more holistic and to foster creative thinking, students can now freely choose subjects from both streams. Available subjects include physics, chemistry, biology, earth science, history, geography, economics, or politics. Most students choose their electives based on their intended field of study in university.

Promotion to the next grade is based on educational assessment and evaluation, with midterm and final exams at the end of each semester. Academic transcripts usually provide detailed information about academic performance, class ranking, and attendance. Students who complete all required 204 credit units are awarded a certificate of graduation from high school.

Specialized (Vocational) High Schools

The name of vocationally oriented high schools has changed over the years-they used to be called vocational high schools, then technical high schools, but are currently referred to as "specialized schools." Vocational upper-secondary education prepares students for entry into the labor force as skilled workers, as well as for further education. The curriculum is divided into a general education component of about 32 percent. About 42 percent is vocational study, with the remainder devoted to other learning activities, which may include industrial internships.

Students study the standard academic core curriculum in grade 10 before specializing in a vocational field, such as business, agriculture, engineering, technology, fishery, or marine transportation in grades 11 and 12. The majority of vocational high schools currently use learning modules developed by the MOE and the Korea Research Institute for Vocational Education and Training on the basis of Korea's National Competency Standards framework.

Graduates are awarded certificates of graduation that are formally equivalent to high school diplomas from other types of schools and that provide access to tertiary education. However, far fewer (and decreasing) graduates in the vocational track pursue higher education. Many continue their studies at junior colleges rather than at four-year universities.

The Korean government seeks to promote labor market entry directly after high school and strengthen vocational skills training with an "employment first, advancement to university later" approach. To this end, Korea in 2008 established a new type of vocational school, the so-called Meister schools, which teach curricula tailored to industry needs in fields like banking, social services, dental hygiene, maritime industries, or semiconductor development. These curricula are developed in coordination with local companies and incorporate industrial internships; teaching faculty may include industry experts.

Even though only 4 percent of high school students were enrolled in Meister schools as of 2013, these well-funded schools have raised the public's awareness of vocational high schools in Korea and made them more attractive, especially since the partnering government agencies and companies-which include chaebols like LG Electronics-typically guarantee employment for graduates.

Meister school graduates are not allowed to enroll in universities until they work full time for three consecutive years. However, entry into tertiary education has been eased by growing numbers of HEIs adopting special admissions policies that allow Meister school graduates to enroll without sitting for the national college examinations, after completing their three years of full-time employment.

University Admissions

All Korean high school students who intend to apply to university must pass the national University College Scholastic Ability Test ( CSAT), commonly called Suneung in Korean, administered by the Korea Institute of Curriculum and Evaluation (KICE). Held in November each year, this high-stakes examination is a major event during which businesses and the stock market open late to prevent traffic jams, while bus and subway services are increased to ensure that students arrive on time. In 2017, about 593,000 high school students registered for the Suneung. Underscoring the importance of the exams, air traffic in Korea is suspended during the listening section of the eight-hour test.

Depending on their desired academic majors, students choose nine examination subjects from the fields of Korean language, mathematics, English, "investigation" (that is, social studies, science, or vocational education), and a second foreign language or Chinese characters ( Hanja) and literary classics. Korean history is a mandatory subject for all candidates. Some subjects can be taken at two different levels of difficulty. Students that take the CSAT can apply to three different universities at a time.

The test is mostly in multiple-choice format; the final CSAT report lists the scores as well as percentile rankings in all subjects except for English and Korean history. While the vast majority of candidates pass the test, students who fail can retake it. Increasing numbers of students also retake the exams to improve their scores or because they wish to switch majors.

The CSAT scores are a key admission criterion at many universities; near-perfect CSAT scores are a baseline admission threshold at top institutions like the SKY universities. Several Korean HEIs admit students based on a combination of high school records and the CSAT.

However, universities are not obligated to use the CSAT results for admissions. In 2018, only 22.7 percent of freshman students were admitted exclusively on the basis of CSAT scores, whereas the majority of students were admitted based on other criteria, such as high school grade averages, university admissions tests, essays and letters of recommendation, practical tests, extracurricular activities, or interviews. Most of these admissions are through "early admissions," for which candidates apply in September before the annual CSAT exams in November.

Even though the Suneung is considered one of the most challenging university entrance examinations in the world, several Korean universities conduct major-related entrance examinations in addition to CSAT, which tests students' knowledge of the standard high school curriculum. University admissions in Korea are highly competitive, especially at top institutions like the SKY universities, which admit only the top 2 percent of CSAT scorers.

The current Korean government considers the CSAT the most objective and socially equitable admission criterion; it is seeking to increase use of the test in university admissions. It recently mandated that universities admit at least 30 percent of their students based on the Suneung by 2022. At the same time, the MOE is attempting to make passing the examination easier by replacing percentile rankings with absolute grading in the second foreign language and Chinese characters subject tests within the next four years.

In addition, the government promotes policies similar to affirmative action by requiring mandatory special admissions quotas for students from rural regions. Given the ubiquity of private tutoring, students from rural regions and lower income households tend to score lower in the CSAT and are disadvantaged in university admissions in general compared with students from affluent metropolitan centers like Seoul.

Overall, admissions quotas at Korean universities, which are set by the MOE for both public and private institutions, are currently being reduced drastically because of population aging and the concomitant decline in tertiary enrollments. In August 2018, the Korean government announced that more than 50 HEIs will face cuts of up to 35 percent in their student intake in 2019.

Higher Education

Like its school system, Korea's higher education system is patterned after that of the United States. Its standard structure includes associate degrees awarded by junior colleges, and four-year bachelor's degrees, master's degrees, and doctoral degrees awarded by universities.

Higher Education Institutions

As of 2016, there were 430 HEIs in Korea compared with only 265 in 1990. Exploding demand for university education over the past decades has been accompanied by a rapidly growing number of private providers springing up to accommodate this demand. More than 80 percent of HEIs are now privately owned-a fact that is mirrored in 80 percent of tertiary students being enrolled in private institutions, per UNESCO.

Private HEIs include top research universities like Korea University, Sungkyunkwan University, and Yonsei University, as well as various for-profit providers of lesser quality. The size, quality, and funding levels of Korea's HEIs differ greatly, resulting in a stratified university system dominated by prestigious top institutions in Seoul. The largest Korean HEI in terms of enrollments is the Korea National Open University, a public distance education provider with more than 136,000 students headquartered in Seoul.

Korea's HEIs have historically been tightly regulated by the government, even though restrictions on universities have been eased significantly since the mid-1990s, and the MOE currently seeks to further increase the autonomy of HEIs. Public institutions are directly supervised by the MOE and private HEIs operate under similar rules as public institutions. In other words, they are constrained by a higher degree of regulation than private HEIs in other countries.

Korean HEIs include 138 junior colleges, the vast majority of them private, and 189 universities-a group that comprises national universities and private institutions. Most universities are multi-disciplinary institutions that comprise multiple departments, but there are also mono-specialized universities like the engineering-focused Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. In addition, there are 10 specialized universities of education, two industrial universities, a number of polytechnics, and distance education universities, as well as other providers like "intra-company universities" set up for employees in specific industries. There are 1,153 graduate schools, almost all of which are incorporated into universities, but may also operate as stand-alone institutions. (All numbers are according to 2017 KESS statistics. For a classification of different types of HEIs, see the MOE's website.)

Beyond merging and closing institutions amid demographic decline, the Korean government currently seeks to strengthen industrial-academic cooperation and restructure several universities into smaller, more specialized, and more research-oriented institutions that have greater autonomy in order to create world-class institutions that concentrate on graduate education. Universities in provincial regions are being supported through the imposition of mandatory employment quotas for local graduates in local industries.

Quality Assurance and Accreditation

HEIs can only be set up with the approval of the MOE, which has wide-ranging authority over matters like curricula, degree structures, admissions quotas, or the hiring of faculty. In 2010, Korea implemented a mandatory independent accreditation process for universities under the purview of the Korean University Accreditation Institute (KUAI), an organization affiliated with the Korean Council of University Education, a private association of Korea's universities. In addition to institutional KUAI accreditation, degree programs in professional disciplines are accredited individually by bodies like the Accreditation Board for Engineering Education of Korea, the Korean Institute of Medical Education and Evaluation, or the Korea Architectural Accrediting Board.

Institutional KUAI accreditation is granted for periods of five years, whereas program-based accreditation is typically granted for periods of from four to six years. In the case of shortcomings, institutions and programs are accredited conditionally for two- or three-year periods during which institutions must address inadequacies. Institutions are evaluated via self-assessment, site inspections, and other objective criteria.

Quality criteria stipulated by the KUAI include adequate financial and management structures, teaching staff, facilities, student retention rates, learning outcomes, research output, student satisfaction, and commitment to quality improvement and social contributions to local communities and economic development. As of 2018, 170 universities had obtained accreditation from KUAI.

To promote quality in higher education and establish criteria for the inevitable downsizing and closure of HEIs, the government of former President Park Geun-hye also introduced a new evaluation system for HEIs that ranked universities in five different categories, from excellent to very poor (A to E). HEIs ranked excellent were allowed to voluntarily reduce their student intake, while all others became subject to mandatory capacity cuts, funding cuts, or merger or closure, depending on their ranking. More than 25 universities were classified as poor in 2017 and are in danger of closure in the near future.

In response to sharp criticism of the ranking, the Moon administration has made some changes to the evaluation process, but in 2018 ordered further cuts in university seats, which are slated to be reduced by an additional 120,000 seats by 2023. Ranking is tied to government funding: Top-performing HEIs are designated as "autonomously competent" institutions and rewarded with higher funding levels.

International University Rankings

Given Korea's high level of economic development and its strong focus on education, Korean top universities don't fare as well in international university rankings as Korean policy makers would like them to. Various initiatives, from the "Brain Pool" and " Brain Korea 21" programs of the 1990s to the current Industry-University Cooperation project, have therefore been dedicated to boosting the research output and international competitiveness of Korean universities.

In the late 2000s, Korea allocated approximately USD$600 million to the recruitment of foreign researchers in an initiative called " world class university" program. Such initiatives helped to significantly increase the percentage of foreign faculty at Korean HEIs and fueled rapid increases in research output. For instance, Korea is now the world's leading country in publishing academic research in collaboration with industry partners. However, despite strong advances in modernization and internationalization, the Korean education system is still somewhat insular and its HEIs continue to trail other Asian countries like China, Japan and India in terms of international journal citations and other ranking criteria like employer reputation.

There are two Korean universities ranked among the top 100 in the current 2019 Times Higher Education World University Rankings - the flagship Seoul National University - SNU (ranked at 63rd place) and Sungkyunkwan University, a private institution said to be East Asia's oldest university, at position 82. This compares to three Chinese, two Japanese and two Singaporean universities among the top 100. Ten Korean universities are included in the current Shanghai ( ARWU) Rankings, but none among the top 100. This compares to 51 Chinese universities and 16 Japanese included in the top 500, six of them among the top 100. SNU and Sungkyunkwan University are the highest ranked Korean institutions.

In the QS World University Rankings, Korean universities have advanced noticeably in recent years - there are now five Korean universities featured among the top 100 compared with only three in 2016. Seoul National University ranks 36th worldwide and is the 11th highest ranked institution among Asian universities, followed by the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (rank 40), Pohang University of Science and Technology (83), Korea University (86), and Sungkyunkwan University (100).

Education Spending

Both public and private HEIs, in particular, are heavily dependent on tuition fees, which average USD$8.500 per annum and range anywhere from USD$1,500 to USD$20,000 per semester, depending on the program and institution. Tuition fee hikes caused growing social resistance and student protests in recent years. In response, the Korean government enacted substantial tuition cuts and expanded scholarship funding. Korean students are also eligible for government loans.

Overall, public spending on education has increased significantly in recent years, causing the share of private expenditures to drop by 24 percent between 2008 and 2013, according to the OECD. Per UNESCO, public education spending as a share of GDP grew from 4.86 percent in 2011 to 5.25 percent in 2015. While that is pretty high for a developed economy, government spending per tertiary student still remains below OECD average. Education spending as a percentage of all government expenditures has fluctuated over the past decade and stood at 18.2 percent in 2017. Total government expenditures on education have tripled since 2000 and will be increased by another 10.5 percent to 70.9 trillion won (USD$63.9 billion) in 2019.

Credit System and Higher Education Grading Scales

The credit system and grading scales used by Korean HEIs closely resemble those of the United States. One Korean credit unit usually denotes one contact hour (50 minutes) taken over 15 or 16 weeks, and most courses bear three credit units. Most four-year bachelor's programs require at least 130 credits for graduation, even though 140-credit programs also exist. Two-year master's programs usually require at least 24 credits plus a thesis for graduation, but some programs have higher credit requirements.

Typical grading scales include 0-100 numerical scales with 60 (D) being the minimum passing grade for individual courses at the undergraduate level. In addition, there are A-F letter grading scales, of which there are two variations with either 4.3 or 4.5 as the highest grade point (see below). Graduation from undergraduate programs usually requires an overall grade point average of at least 70 or C (2.00). At the graduate level, graduation generally requires a minimum final GPA of 3.0 (B or 80). The passing grade for individual courses in graduate programs may be higher than in undergraduate programs (that is, 70 or C). Academic transcripts commonly feature grading scale legends, as well as an explanation of the credit system.

The Higher Education Degree Structure

Korea's junior colleges, polytechnics, industrial universities, and some other universities offer two- or three-year vocationally oriented post-secondary programs leading to associate degrees in fields like engineering, business administration, health care, fashion design, social work, secretarial studies, or agriculture. Most programs are two years in length (75 to 80 credits), but three-year programs (120 credits or more) also exist in fields like nursing, rehabilitation therapy, early childhood education, interior design, or broadcasting. The final credential may simply be called Associate Degree, or Associate of Science, or Associate of Arts.

Curricula typically include a general education component of about 30 percent in addition to major-specific subjects, with an increasing emphasis on internships. Students are assessed by examinations taken in the middle and at the end of each semester. Junior colleges are focused on training mid-level technicians, but students can also transfer credits to four-year programs (much the same as community college students in the U.S. can) under junior college-university agreements.
Bachelor's Degree (Haksa)
Bachelor's degrees are awarded by universities and four-year colleges. Programs in standard academic disciplines are four years in length (at least 130 credits), while bachelor's programs in professional disciplines like architecture, pharmacy, or medicine take five or six years to complete (see also the section on medical and dental education below). As in the U.S., curricula include core and elective general education subjects, predominantly taken within the first two years, and mandatory and elective subjects in the major. A thesis, project, or comprehensive examination is usually required for graduation, in addition to a cumulative GPA of at least C (2.00). Some programs may be studied in part-time mode. Standard degrees awarded include the Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science, but there is a multitude of credential names, such as the Bachelor of Economics, Bachelor of Information Science, or Bachelor of Statistics, etc.
Master's Degree (Suksa)
Master's degree programs ( Suksa) are two years in length and studied in graduate schools, most of which are incorporated into universities. Admission is typically based on the completion of a bachelor's degree with a GPA of at least 3.0, entrance examinations in the intended field of study and English and, often, selection interviews. Completion of the program requires at least 24 credits of course work, a thesis, and a grade point average of B (3.0) or better. Credential names include the Master of Arts, Master of Science, and numerous other major-specific variations.

The doctoral degree is a terminal research degree awarded by graduate schools. As in the U.S., programs may be structured as integrated programs entered on the basis of a bachelor's degree with students earning a master's degree en route, or as stand-alone programs that do not include a master's degree. In the latter case, programs usually take at least three years to complete, including two years (30 credits) of course work, a passing score on a comprehensive examination, and the defense of a dissertation. Students must also demonstrate proficiency in two foreign languages and maintain a GPA of 3.0 or better. Integrated programs take four years to complete at minimum, including 60 credit units of course work. The most commonly awarded credential is the Doctor of Philosophy, but there are also credentials like the Doctor of Science or applied doctorates like the Doctor of Business Administration.
Medical and Dental Education
Entry-to-practice degrees in medicine and dentistry are either earned upon completion of long single-tier programs of six-years' duration entered after high school, or four-year graduate-entry programs on top of a bachelor's degree. In the case of undergraduate programs, the curriculum includes two years of pre-medical science education and four years of medical studies and clinical practice. Graduate-entry programs don't include the pre-medicine component, but students must pass a medical or dental education eligibility test and are expected to have completed certain prerequisite courses. Most medical schools in Korea offer programs of the undergraduate variety.

Credentials awarded are the Bachelor of Medicine or Doctor of Medicine, and the Bachelor of Dentistry, Doctor of Dental Medicine, or Doctor of Dental Surgery. To become licensed practitioners, graduates need to pass a comprehensive national licensing examination. Certification in medical specialties requires an additional one-year clinical internship and three years of residency training followed by an examination in the specialty.
Korean and Oriental Medicine
Korean medicine is a traditional East Asian system that relies on herbal medicine, acupuncture, or cupping therapies. Traditional medicine is widely used in Korea; it is officially recognized and regulated in the same way Western medicine is. Professional education in traditional medicine is structured similar to professional education in other medical programs: Practitioners must complete a six-year undergraduate or four-year graduate-entry program before taking a national licensing exam. Specialty training involves a one-year internship and three years of residency training. Credentials awarded include the Bachelor of Oriental Medicine or Doctor of Korean Medicine.
Teacher Education
Teaching is a well-respected and highly paid profession that is tightly regulated by the Korean government. Teacher training is provided by universities of education, colleges of education, and departments of education at regular universities. The Korean government sets national curriculum standards.

WES Document Requirements
Secondary Education

Photocopy of graduation certificate or diploma issued in English-submitted by the applicant

Academic Transcript issued in English-sent directly by the institution attended

Higher Education

Academic transcript issued in English-sent directly by the institution attended

For completed doctoral programs-a written statement from the awarding institution indicating the date of degree conferral and the major

Sample Documents

Click here for a PDF file of the academic documents referred to below.

Certificate of Graduation from High School

Associate Degree

Bachelor of Arts

Doctor of Medicine

Master of Science

Doctor of Philosophy

1. International enrollments as a percentage of the total tertiary enrollment in the country as reported by the UIS.

2. When comparing international student numbers, it is important to note that numbers provided by different agencies and governments vary because of differences in data capture methodology, definitions of "international student," and types of mobility captured (credit, degree, etc.). The data of the UNESCO Institute Statistics provides the most reliable point of reference for comparison since it is compiled according to one standard method. It should be pointed out, however, that it only includes students enrolled in tertiary degree programs. It does not include students on shorter study abroad exchanges, or those enrolled at the secondary level or in short-term language training programs, for instance.

3. See: Ministry of Education: Globalization of Korean Education - Education in Korea, 2017, Sejong, pp. 48-53. ( Link)

5. By some accounts, the percentage of foreign instructors among Korean faculty increased from 2.4 percent in 2000 to 7.1 percent in 2013.

6. Korean National Development Institute: A Window into Korean Education, 2017, p.22. ( Link).

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This comprehensive overview of education in South Korea is an invaluable resource for credential evaluators, recruiters, and other HEI professionals.

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o   Robeyns, Ingrid. 2016. "The Capability Approach." In Stanford Encylopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta. < https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/capability-approach/ > viewed 21 September 2017.

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o   Schröer, Regine. 2015. "Employability Versus Capability: European Strategies for Young People." In Facing Trajectories from School to Work: Towards a Capability-Friendly Youth Policy in Europe, edited by Hans-Uwe Otto, Roland Atzmüller, Thierry Berthet, Lavinia Bifulco, Jean-Michel Bonvin, Enrica Chiappero-Martinetti, Valerie Egdell, et al., 361-85. Springer.

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Bonvin, Jean-Michel, and Nicolas Farvaque. 2006. "Promoting capability for work: the role of local actors." In Transforming unjust structures: the capability approach, edited by Séverine Deneulin, Mathias Nebel and Nicholas Sagovsky. Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Springer.

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o   Meyer, John, Fancisco O. Ramirez, David John Frank, and Evan Schofer. 2007. "Higher Education as an Institution." In Sociology of higher education: Contexts and their contributions, edited by Patricia J. Gumport, 187-221. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

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This Wikipedia entry will help to introduce you to institutional theory. The article by Meyer et al. is from sociological institutionalism

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This Wikipedia entry will help to introduce you to institutional theory. The article by Meyer et al. is from sociological institutionalism

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New institutionalism or neo-institutionalism is an approach to the study of institutions that focuses on the constraining and enabling effects of formal and informal rules on the behavior of individuals and groups. New institutionalism traditionally encompasses three strands: sociological institutionalism, rational choice institutionalism, and historical institutionalism. New institutionalism originated in work by sociologist John Meyer published in 1977.

The study of institutions and their interactions has been a focus of academic research for many years. In the late 19th and early 20th century, social theorists began to systematize this body of literature. One of the most prominent examples of this was the work of German economist and social theorist Max Weber; Weber focused on the organizational structure (i.e. bureaucracy) within society, and the institutionalization created by means of the iron cage which organizational bureaucracies create. In Britain and the United States, the study of political institutions dominated political science until the 1950s. This approach, sometimes called 'old' institutionalism, focused on analyzing the formal institutions of government and the state in comparative perspective. It was followed by a behavioral revolution which brought new perspectives to analyzing politics, such as positivism, rational choice theory, and behavioralism, and the narrow focus on institutions was discarded as the focus moved to analyzing individuals rather than the institutions which surrounded them. New Institutionalism was a reaction to the behavioral revolution.

Institutionalism experienced a significant revival in 1977 with an influential paper published by John W. Meyer of Stanford University and his Ph.D. student at the time, Brian Rowan. The revised formulation of institutionalism proposed in this paper prompted a significant shift in the way institutional analysis was conducted. Research that followed became known as "new" institutionalism, a concept that is generally referred to as "neo-institutionalism" in academic literature.

Another significant reformulation occurred in the early 1980s when Paul DiMaggio and Walter W. Powell consciously revisited Weber's iron cage. The following decade saw an explosion of literature on the topic across many disciplines, including those outside of the social sciences. Examples of the body of work in the decade which followed can be found in DiMaggio and Powell's 1991 anthology in the field of sociology; in economics, the Nobel Prize-winning work of Douglass North is a noted example.

Kathleen Thelen and Sven Steinmo contrast New Institutionalism with "Old Institutionalism", which was overwhelmingly focused on detailed narratives of institutions, with little focus on comparative analyses. Thus, the Old Institutionalism was unhelpful for comparative research and explanatory theory. This "Old Institutionalism" began to be undermined when scholars increasingly highlighted how the formal rules and administrative structures of institutions were not accurately describing the behavior of actors and policy outcomes.

More-recent work has begun to emphasize multiple competing logics, focusing on the more-heterogeneous sources of diversity within fields and the institutional embeddedness of technical considerations. The concept of logic generally refers to broader cultural beliefs and rules that structure cognition and guide decision-making in a field. At the organization level, logic can focus the attention of key decision-makers on a delimited set of issues and solutions, leading to logic-consistent decisions that reinforce extant organizational identities and strategies. In line with the new institutionalism, social rule system theory stresses that particular institutions and their organizational instantiations are deeply embedded in cultural, social, and political environments and that particular structures and practices are often reflections of as well as responses to rules, laws, conventions, paradigms built into the wider environment.

Numerous scholarly approaches have been described as being part of New institutionalism.

Sociological institutionalism is a form of new institutionalism that concerns "the way in which institutions create meaning for individuals, providing important theoretical building blocks for normative institutionalism within political science". Some sociological institutionalists argue that institutions have developed to become similar (showing an isomorphism) across organizations even though they evolved in different ways. Institutions are therefore seen as important in cementing and propagating cultural norms. Sociological institutionalists also emphasize how the functions and structures of organizations do not necessarily reflect functional purposes, but rather ceremonies and rituals. Actors comply with institutional rules and norms because other types of behavior are inconceivable; actors follow routines because they take a for-granted quality.

Normative institutionalism is a sociological interpretation of institutions and holds that a " logic of appropriateness" guides the behavior of actors within an institution. It predicts that the norms and formal rules of institutions will shape the actions of those acting within them. According to James March, the logic of appropriateness means that actions are "matched to situations by means of rules organized into identities." Thus normative institutionalism views that much of the behavior of institutional actors is based on the recognized situation that the actors encounter, the identity of the actors in the situation, and the analysis by the actor of the rules that generally govern behavior for that actor in that particular situation.

New institutional economics (NIE) is an economic perspective that attempts to extend economics by focusing on the institutions (that is to say the social and legal norms and rules) that underlie economic activity and with analysis beyond earlier institutional economics and neoclassical economics. It can be seen as a broadening step to include aspects excluded in neoclassical economics. It rediscovers aspects of classical political economy. Major scholars associated with the subject include Masahiko Aoki, Armen Alchian, Harold Demsetz, Steven N. S. Cheung, Avner Greif, Yoram Barzel, Claude Ménard (economist), Daron Acemoglu, and four Nobel laureates- Ronald Coase, Douglass North, Elinor Ostrom, and Oliver Williamson. A convergence of such researchers resulted in founding the Society for Institutional & Organizational Economics (formerly the International Society for New Institutional Economics) in 1997.

Rational choice institutionalism is a theoretical approach to the study of institutions arguing that actors use institutions to maximize their utility. It employs analytical tools borrowed from neo-classical economics to explain how institutions are created, the behaviour of political actors within it, and the outcome of strategic interaction. Rational choice institutionalism draws heavily from rational choice theory but is not identical to it. Proponents argue that political actors' rational choices are constrained (called " bounded rationality"). These bounds are accepted as individuals realize their goals can be best achieved through institutions. In other words, institutions are systems of rules and inducements to behavior in which individuals attempt to maximize their own benefit.

According to Erik Voeten, rational choice scholarship on institutions can be divided between (1) rational functionalism and (2) Distributive rationalism. The former sees organizations as functional optimal solutions to collective problems, whereas the latter sees organizations as an outcome of actors' individual and collective goals. Since individual and collective goals may conflict, the latter version of RCI accepts that suboptimal institutions are likely.

This version of institutionalism states that "history matters". Paths chosen or designed early in the existence of an institution tend to be followed throughout the institution's development. Institutions will have an inherent agenda based on the pattern of development, both informal (the way things are generally done) and formal (laws, rule sets and institutional interaction).

A key concept is path dependency: the historical track of a given institution or political entity will result in almost inevitable occurrences. In some institutions, this may be a self-perpetuating cycle: actions of one type beget further actions of this type.

This theory does not hold that institutional paths will forever be inevitable. Critical junctures may allow rapid change at a time of great crisis.

Proponents of discursive institutionalism, such as Vivien Schmidt, emphasize how ideas and discourses affect institutional stability and change.

Constructivist institutionalists assert that political, social, or policy discourses can perform communicative functions: actors publicly expressing ideas can lead to social change, or coordinating functions. Thus ideas and meaning provide a mechanism for multiple actors to achieve consensus on norms and values and thus create social change. This is increasingly moving beyond political science and into international relations theory and foreign policy analysis.

Feminist institutionalism is a new institutionalist approach which looks at "how gender norms operate within institutions and how institutional processes construct and maintain gender power dynamics".

Berger, Peter L.; Luckmann (1966), The Social Construction of Reality, New York: Doubleday.

Chappell, Louise (June 2006). "Comparing political institutions: revealing the gendered 'logic of appropriateness'". Politics & Gender. 2 (2): 223-35. doi:10.1017/S1743923X06221044. S2CID 145811736.

DiMaggio, Paul J.; Powell, Walter W. (April 1983). "The iron cage revisited: institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields". American Sociological Review. 48 (2): 147-60. doi:10.2307/2095101. JSTOR 2095101.

---; Powell, Walter W., eds. (1991), The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 1-38.

Friedland, Roger; Alford, Robert R. (1991). Powell, Walter W.; DiMaggio, Paul J. (eds.). "Bringing Society Back In: Symbols, Practices, and Institutional Contradictions". The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis: 232-63.

Jepperson, Ronald L. (1991), "Institutions, Institutional Effects, and Institutionalism", in Powell, Walter W.; DiMaggio, Paul J (eds.), The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 143-63.

Krücken, Georg; Drori, Gili S., eds. (2009), World Society: The Writings of John W. Meyer, Oxford: University Press, ISBN 9780199593439 .

Krücken, Georg; Mazza, Carmelo; Meyer, Renate; Walgenbach, Peter, eds. (2017), New Themes in Institutional Analysis. Topics and Issues from European Research, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, ISBN 9781784716868 .

Lounsbury, Michael (2001). "Institutional Sources of Practice Variation: Staffing College and University Recycling Programs". Administrative Science Quarterly. 46 (1): 29-56. doi:10.2307/2667124. JSTOR 2667124. S2CID 145613530.

--- (April 2007). "A tale of two cities: competing logics and practice variation in the professionalizing of mutual funds". Academy of Management Journal. 50 (2): 289-307. doi:10.5465/AMJ.2007.24634436. S2CID 67820131.

March, James G.; Olsen, Johan P. (1989). Rediscovering Institutions. The Organizational Basis of Politics. New York: The Free Press (also Italian, Japanese, Polish and Spanish (Mexico) editions).

Meyer, Heinz-Dieter and Brian Rowan, 2006. The New Institutionalism in Education. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

Meyer, John W.; Rowan, Brian (1991), "Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony", in Powell, W.; DiMaggio, P. (eds.), The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

---; Rowan, Brian (September 1977). "Institutionalized organizations: formal structure as myth and ceremony". American Journal of Sociology. 83 (2): 340-63. doi:10.1086/226550. JSTOR 2778293. S2CID 141398636.

Nicita, Antonio; Vatiero, Massimiliano (July 2007). "The contract and the market: towards a broader notion of transaction?" (PDF). Studi e Note di Economia. 12 (1): 7-22. doi:10.2139/ssrn.2473437. S2CID 166964883. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-09-27.

Ocasio, William (July 1997). "Towards An Attention‐Based View of The Firm". Strategic Management Journal. 18 (S1): 187-206. doi:10.1002/(sici)1097-0266(199707)18:1+<187::aid-smj936>3.3.co;2-b. ISSN 0143-2095.

Parto, Saeed. 2003. Economic Activity and Institutions, Economics Working Paper Archive at WUSTL.

Powell, W.W. (2007). "The New Institutionalism". The International Encyclopedia of Organization Studies. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Scott, Richard W. 2001. Institutions and Organizations, 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.

---; Ruef, M.; Mendel, P.; Caronna, C. (2000). Institutional change and healthcare organizations : from professional dominance to managed care. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-22674309-7. OCLC 42689995.

Thornton, Patricia H. (February 2002). "The rise of the corporation in a craft industry: conflict and conformity in institutional logics". Academy of Management Journal. 45 (1): 81-101. doi:10.2307/3069286. JSTOR 3069286.

--- (2004). Markets from culture : institutional logics and organizational decisions in higher education publishing. Stanford, CA: Stanford Business Books. ISBN 978-0-80474021-0. OCLC 53483582.

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New institutionalism or neo-institutionalism is an approach to the study of institutions that focuses on the constraining and enabling effects of formal and informal rules on the behavior of individuals and groups. New institutionalism traditionally encompasses three strands: sociological institutionalism, rational choice institutionalism, and historical institutionalism.

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This reading is recommended by Michael to understand the different outcomes for graduates with degrees from universities in Finland on the one hand, and those with degrees from the universities of technology on the other.

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This reading is recommended by Michael to understand the different outcomes for graduates with degrees from universities in Finland on the one hand, and those with degrees from the universities of technology on the other.

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Isopahkala-Bouret, Ulpukka, Mikko Aro, and Kristiina Ojala. 2021. "Positional competition in a binary system: the case of Finnish higher education."  Tertiary education and management 27 (2):143-59. doi: 10.1007/s11233-021-09070-8.

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Women’s vocational education 1890–1990 in Finland and Sweden- the example of vocational home economics education

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Women’s vocational education 1890–1990 in Finland and Sweden- the example of vocational home economics education

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Broberg, Å., Lindberg, V., & Wärvik, G.-B. (2021). Women’s vocational education 1890–1990 in Finland and Sweden: the example of vocational home economics education. Journal of Vocational Education & Training, 73(2), 217–233. https://doi.org/10.1080/13636820.2021.1889646

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Women’s vocational education 1890–1990 in Finland and Sweden- the example of vocational home economics education

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Emergence of economic institutions: Analysing the third role of universities in Turku, Finland

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Emergence of economic institutions: Analysing the third role of universities in Turku, Finland

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Srinivas, S., & Viljamaa, K. (2008). Emergence of economic institutions: Analysing the third role of universities in Turku, Finland. Regional Studies, 42(3), 323–341. https://doi.org/10.1080/00343400701291534

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Emergence of Economic Institutions- Analysing the Third Role of Universities in Turku, Finland

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Understanding vulnerability and encouraging young adults to become active citizens through education: the role of adult education professionals.

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Understanding vulnerability and encouraging young adults to become active citizens through education: the role of adult education professionals.

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Toiviainen, H., Kersh, N., & Hyytiä, J. (2019). Understanding vulnerability and encouraging young adults to become active citizens through education: the role of adult education professionals. Journal of Adult and Continuing Education, 25(1), 45–64. https://doi.org/10.1177/1477971419826116

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Understanding vulnerability and encouraging young adults to become active citizens through education- the role of adult education professionals

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The academic-vocational divide in three Nordic countries: implications for social class and gender

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The academic-vocational divide in three Nordic countries: implications for social class and gender

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Nylund, M., Rosvall, P.-Å., Eiríksdóttir, E., Holm, A.-S., Isopahkala-Bouret, U., Niemi, A.-M., & Ragnarsdóttir, G. (2018). The academic-vocational divide in three Nordic countries: implications for social class and gender. Education Enquiry, 9(1), 97–121. https://doi.org/10.1080/20004508.2018.1424490

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The academic vocational divide in three Nordic countries implications for social class and gender

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Integration of Vocational Education and Training Experiences: Purposes, Practices and Principles (Vol. 29)

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Integration of Vocational Education and Training Experiences: Purposes, Practices and Principles (Vol. 29)

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Choy, S., Wärvik, G.-B., & Lindberg, V. (2018). Integration of Vocational Education and Training Experiences: Purposes, Practices and Principles (Vol. 29). Springer Singapore Pte. Limited.

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Choy, S., Wärvik, G.-B., & Lindberg, V. (2018). Integration of Vocational Education and Training Experiences- Purposes, Practices and Principles (Vol. 29

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The Changing Nature and Role of VET in Europe

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The Shifting Relationship between Vocational and Higher Education in France and Germany

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Competence-Based VET - the Cases of England and France

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Atlas of French education
Page 17 shows numbers of students in IUTs by location.

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This resource is licensed for your use by the University of Toronto Libraries. Off-campus access is available to current University of Toronto students, staff and faculty. For assistance with determining or obtaining your UTORid, please contact us at reader.reg@utoronto.ca. If you are eligible to obtain a UTORid, library staff will provide you with activation instructions.

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Here are the links to the definitions that Gavin found in today's meeting: 

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Here are the links to the definitions that Gavin found in today's meeting: 

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King, Alison (1993) From sage on the stage to guide on the side, College Teaching, volume 41, number 1, pages 30-35.13:55:41

Informal education: Informal education is education that is not organised. Informal learning can be either intentional (e.g. participation in short lectures or reading books or journals) or unintentional (occurring by chance or as a by-product of everyday activities). See also Formal education and Non-formal education.

Formal education: Formal education is defined as education provided in the system of schools, colleges, universities and other formal educational institutions and that normally constitutes a continuous ladder of full-time education for children and young people, generally beginning at age 5 to 7 and continuing up to 20 or 25 years old or above. In some countries, the upper parts of this ladder consist of organised programmes of joint part-time employment and part-time participation in the regular school and university system: such programmes have come to be known as the “dual system”, or other equivalent terms, in these countries. See also Non-formal education and Informal education.

Non-formal education: Non-formal education is defined as any organised and sustained educational activities that do not correspond exactly to the above definition of formal education. Non-formal education may therefore take place both within and outside educational institutions, and cater to persons of all ages. Depending on country contexts, it may cover educational programmes to impart adult literacy, basic education for out-of-school children, life skills, work skills and general culture. Non-formal education programmes do not necessarily follow the ladder system, and may have a differing duration. See also Formal education and Informal education.

Oecd. (2010). Glossary. In Education at a glance 2010: OECD indicators                  http://www.oecd.org/document/52/0,3343,en_2649_39263238_45897844_1_1_1_37455,00.html