Limitations and Possibilities of Evaluation-based Higher Education Reform in South Korea

Abstract

Evaluation-based higher education reform policies in South Korea have been hot issues among stakeholders including policy makers, professors, and university leaderships since the 1990s. This paper analyzes the aims and contents of the different types of evaluation that have been systematically and practically enforced in Korean higher education as part of its reform initiatives and discusses its’ limitations and possibilities for improving higher education quality. By employing content analysis including government documents and related articles this paper first reviews the developmental phases, focusing on the types and contents, of evaluation policies initiated at the government level. Then, the paper explores some characteristics of the evaluation policies since the mid-1990s. Lastly, this study discusses its’ limitations and possibilities of the evaluation based higher education reform by considering major issues which appeared in the process of implementing the evaluation policies.