2.8 Trillion Won Spent for the Retraining of College Graduates

Enterprises spent 2.8 trillion won a year in retraining technical employees whom they strived to employ, because what the students learn in college does not meet the requirement of industrial fields. And there is keen avoidance going on to technical colleges, which reduces potential technicians and obstructs strengthening of industrial competitive power.

The Federation of Korean Industries (FKI) warned the failure in cultivating industrial expertise through its report titled `the present condition and problems of industrial technicians` saying, "Students are reluctant to attend technical colleges as applicants for science in College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) reduced from 43 percent in 1995 to 27 percent 2002."

FKI indicated that theoretical education of colleges hasn`t caught up with the development of technique in industrial fields, which increases the cost of retraining of each enterprise, and decreases industrial productivity. Samsung Electronics spent 7 billion won in training 2500 new employees who graduated from colleges for 3 months last year, and the average cost for training new employees of SK Telecom for 3 months reached 10 million won.

FKI urged, "Applied to 70,000 technical expertise whom domestic enterprises employ every year, the cost for retraining would reach 2.8 trillion won. And considering the opportunity cost resulted from the training period, when they cannot be put to practical business, national loss would increase more."

Lee In-Ryol, executive director of FKI said, "According to the report of Swiss International Management Development (IMD), educational system of Korea ranked 44th, which is inferior to that of Malaysia (32nd) and Indonesia (38th). To raise capable technical expertise, curriculum of colleges should be adjusted to the request of industrial circles, and measures to increase tax deduction for the training costs are required."

Won-Jae Park parkwj@donga.com