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Republic of Korea : Workforce Development

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2013
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2013
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The Republic of Korea vaulted in less than three generations from being one of the poorest countries in the world to becoming a member of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). This economic transformation has attracted considerable admiration and inquiry. One of the key factors for Korea's success was the provision of skills to support industrialization and economic diversification. This report takes advantage of a new World Bank diagnostic tool to examine the development of the Korean system for Workforce Development (WfD) from 1970 to 2010. The findings are intended to document good practices, lapses and key breakthroughs and generate insights that can be used to enrich dialogue on WfD policy in the World Bank's partner countries. The tool is based on an analytical framework that identifies three functional dimensions of WfD policies and institutions: strategic framework, which refers to the praxis of advocacy, partnership, and coordination in relation to the objective of aligning WfD in critical areas to priorities for national development; system oversight, which refers to the arrangements governing funding, quality assurance and learning pathways that shape the incentives and information signals affecting the choices of individuals, employers, training providers and other stakeholders; and service delivery, which refers to the diversity, organization and management of training provision, both state and non-state, that deliver results on the ground by enabling individuals to acquire market-and job-relevant skills. These three dimensions constitute a closed policy-making loop and, when taken together, allow for analysis of the functioning of a WfD system as a whole. This report focuses specifically on policies in the area of WfD.
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World Bank. 2013. Republic of Korea : Workforce Development. Systems Approach for Better Education Results (SABER);. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/16277 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.
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