[Opinion] Junior College Employment

When Tzu-kung (520 B.C. to 456 B.C.) asked Confucius who was wiser between Shih and Shang, the master replied, "Shih goes too far and Shang does not go far enough." Tzu-kung asked again if this meant that Shih was the better one, but his teacher replied, "To go too far is as bad as not going far enough."

How Confucius would feel for the highly educated unemployed of today.

Corporate recruiters have a saying: “A master’s degree is just as undesirable as a high school diploma. Junior college graduates are the best, because they’ve learned the necessary skills.”

Despite the tough labor market last year, a remarkable 83.5 percent of two-year college graduates found jobs, 18.5 percent higher than the 65 percent employment rate of four-year university graduates. For women in particular, those graduating from two-year colleges recorded 82.6 percent employment, beating their peers from four-year universities by 20.3 percent. Only 52.3 percent of high school graduates found work as well.

It seems nowadays, too much or too little education can work against you in finding a job.

Popular two-year colleges programs such as ophthalmic optics or dental hygiene boast a 100 percent employment rate for their graduates. Out of the 124 students who graduated last year from the Tourism and English Department at the Chungkang College of Cultural Industries in Icheon City, Gyeonggi Province, 118, excluding those going on to pursue further studies or complete their military service, found work.

The secret to the department’s job placement success was signing cooperation agreements with companies such as the InterContinental Hotel, the Ritz-Carlton Hotel and Thai Airways International for it to provide training specifically requested by those companies.

The department’s Professor Park Si-kyun beamed with pride as he said, “Students are highly satisfied with the curriculum as they are very determined to become expert professionals in the tourism industry.”

The government is taking active steps to boost two-year junior college institutions like this one. Manager Lee Yong-kyun of the Junior College Policy Division, a department created last August in Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development, said that there are “plans to invest 168 billion won this year in facilities, equipment and program development to support the specialization of junior colleges.”

The Ministry of Labor has also set up programs to partially support the tuition fees of vocational high school graduates who go on to two-year colleges after being employed by small and medium-sized enterprises.

Let’s hope the junior college education system of catering to businesses’ wants proves even more efficient in easing youth unemployment problems.

Lim Kyu-jin, Editorial Writer, mhjh22@donga.com