Challenge of Korean national competency standards for chemical engineers

Abstract

In the next 7 years, the number of high school graduates in the Republic of Korea will greatly diminish; one estimate predicts a decrease of 30% from 560,000 to 400,000 students (Yoon, 2015). The critical drop of young people is becoming a hot issue in industries as well as academia. A sudden reduction of students will critically affect the entire system of postsecondary education.

There are two primary postsecondary education programs in Korea: 4-year universities (chosen by 63% of Korean students) and 2-year (or 3-year) vocational colleges (selected by 37% of students). Korean education system is presented in Figure 1, where vocational college is marked. In vocational colleges, more emphasis is laid on the training of hands-on skills. Though both universities and vocational colleges will encounter a deep reduction in student population, the sustainability of vocational colleges might be gradually threatened. Japan has struggled with a similar depletion trend for decades (Kazuyoshi, 2015). To make the matters worse, in general, private colleges are heavily dependent on tuition. And for many years, the Korean government has urged all colleges and universities not to increase tuition.

Since early 2010, the government has strongly encouraged reform of the current educational system to more training-oriented programs (Yoon, 2015). The Korean government at that time announced plans to provide financial support to only 100 of 137 currently active vocational colleges. It is quite interesting that most of the government beneficiaries should incorporate a new training program called the Korean National Competency Standards (NCS). The beneficiaries should adopt the NCS program at rates of 50% or more in each academic departmental curriculum within the next few years and NCS program percentages will become the vital index of school evaluation in the next few years. It is expected that the Korean NCS program will be popular in vocational colleges and then it will possibly expand to include 4-year universities.

In terms of sustainable trained workforce, vocational college program reform looks indispensable. However, vocational college faculties and school facilities are not quite ready to employ the Korean NCS program within a few years without trial-and-error. Apart from faculty training, all vocational colleges need to reserve more teaching resources, such as adjunct faculty, training facilities, and equipment. Adjunct faculty, ideally, would be well-experienced personnel from industry. This is reasonable in terms of knowledge transfer from colleges to industries (Garraway, Volbrecht, Wicht, & Ximba, 2011; Hills, Robertson, Walker, Adey, & Nixon, 2003; Knight & Yorke, 2003). In addition, consensus of training curriculum may be shared among faculty with different work experience backgrounds.

The objective of this study is to trigger active discussion of how to blend NCS courses with current courses, specifically in the chemical engineering major. It is expected that diverse plans to organize course curricula depend on domestic and local industrial needs (Bensah, Ahiekpor, & Boateng, 2011; Jameson, Strudwick, Bond-Taylor, & Jones, 2012; Möller, 2014). In this paper, the overall structure and work categories of the Korean NCS program are introduced. Terminology used here is defined by the author with the author's best knowledge for clear delivery of Korean expressions because NCS program text has not been published in English but in Korean. As a first stage of employing the NCS program, 11 current courses were chosen to blend with NCS courses for the chemical engineering major.

Human Resources Development Service of Korea (HRD Korea) was responsible for the establishment of the Korean NCS program. NCS curricula were partly generated by various NCS committee members who represent selected individual work functions. Committee members are mainly composed of three professions: highly experienced industry workers, HRD Korea officers, and vocational college or university faculty. It is reasonable that voice of industry was included in the NCS program because educational curricula are frequently requested by industry to include practical needs (Alsheri et al., 2016; Burke, 1989). The structure of the Korean NCS system is simply illustrated in Figure 2.

Four hierarchical classifications are used in the NCS system: category, group, set, and key work functions as shown in Figure 2. The top classification represents 24 work categories in the Korean NCS system. Each category has several groups of work functions. Subunits of groups are sets of work functions. Finally, each set has several key work functions. Here, it should be noted, a key work function is defined to a competency. In Table 1, the list of 24 work categories is presented. The numbers in the category order column are also used as work category identification numbers. This paper is initially interested in two categories; chemistry (17) and environment and energy (23).

In Table 2, the hierarchical configuration of the chemistry work category is introduced. The head category of chemistry is composed of four different groups of work function: chemicals and chemical process management (1701), petroleum, commodity chemicals production (1702), fine chemical production (1703), and plastic production (1704). Serial numbers in parenthesis are added to clarify the classification of each work function. Two digits are assigned sequentially to work functions based on four hierarchical steps (category, group, set, and key work functions). Each group is composed of several sets. As can be seen in Table 2, one of the groups, chemical and chemical process management (1701), includes three sets: chemical material management (170101), chemical process management (170102), and chemicals R&D (170103). Finally, each set consists of several key work functions. Here, each key work function is defined to each competency of the core workforce. Each individual key work function can be identified by its classification number as mentioned above. For example, Table 2 shows that chemical analysis is classification number of 17010101. More than 890 key work functions (or competencies) out of 24 work categories are generated by HRD Korea.

Table 3 shows the configuration of work categories for Environment and Energy. The work category of environment and energy (23) is composed of six groups: industrial environment (2301), environmental healthcare (2302), natural environment (2303), environment service (2304), energy and resources development (2305), and industrial safety (2306). Each group has its sets and key work functions, similar to those represented above in the chemistry category. If the competency classification number is known, then the appointed key work function can easily be found. Competencies regarding chemistry or chemical process are presented elsewhere (Alsheri et al., 2016; Lovell & Hill, 2012).

Once a key work function (competency) is chosen for the purpose of new course curricula, further studies of each work unit and its element follow. In general, a key work function has eight to nine work units. Each work unit is assigned one to four elements. In order to bring an element for course curriculum, the element level is evaluated first. According to HRD Korea, level 3 is assigned to vocational college graduates with <2 years of work experience. Higher levels of 4, 5, and 6 are attributed to the competency levels of assistant manager, manager, and general manager, respectively. Table 4 details the work units and elements of chemical analysis (17010101). Within the competency of chemical analysis are nine work units, each with elements ranging from level 3 to level 6. It should be noted that the level or a work unit is determined by its highest level elements. For instance, the work unit titled “plan establishment of analysis (1701010101)” is ranked level 3 because its element titled “recording of raw data” is level 3. However, “validation (1701010102)” is defined as level 6 because it has three elements and the highest level element “ensuring analysis methods” is ranked level 6.

Table 5 presents the work units and elements of chemical process management & operation (17010203). The structure of work levels in Table 5 are the same as shown in Table 4. Course work for the chemical engineering major in our college referred two individual units and elements of chemical analysis as well as chemical process management & operation.

Table 6 compares the current courses and new courses derived from work units. It should be noted that each work unit for curriculum also represents elements of level 3 in the assigned work unit. However, further incorporation of courses is still required in the next 2 years.

In order to overcome NCS level discrepancies between big companies and small companies, flexible adoption of element levels is recommendable in colleges. Periodic committee meeting will be also an alternative answer. It should be noted that a committee members are college faculties, well-trained engineers, and HRD personnel from both big companies and small companies. With respect to naming courses, the author suggests keeping traditional course names for the time being. The more important thing is to attain the sustainability of the NCS program in the Republic of Korea. In terms of classroom size, fewer students are better. Based on the author's experience, 20–24 students will be more effective to a class at this time: however, it will be a research topic that will need further discussion.

Korean national competency standards are entering Korean vocational colleges. As a result, traditional course work will be replaced by new competency requirements. It is well-known that a competency can be defined by its work units and elements. This study focuses on the curriculum development from two key competencies of the chemical engineering major: chemistry analysis and chemical process management & operation. Each competency has a hierarchical structure of four serial subdivisions (category, group, set, and key work function), identified by serial numbers. Considering domestic and local workforce demands, more than two competencies will be selected for the chemical engineering department. However, a rapid switch to NCS courses may harm current traditional curricula because theory-based courses, such as general chemistry, are not ready to be replaced by NCS program courses. This work proposes that 11 courses blend components of traditional and NCS programs. As a first stage of NCS curriculum, hybrid curriculum is indispensable in the chemical engineering department.

No conflicts declared.