Research and Innovation

In this chapter, we explain the background to the emergence of alternative education in Korea. We then go on to discuss the policy context for this development and the role of legislation and policy before describing the different forms of alternative education in Korea and the different groups it serves. Finally, we reflect on some of the questions that alternative education raises and suggest that mainstream schools have much to learn from alternative approaches if we are to address the very high youth suicide rates in Korea and find an improved balance between academic success and personal health and wellbeing.

The COVID-19 crisis has disrupted learning globally, exacerbating regional and global disparities that predated the pandemic. This rupture presents a unique opportunity to reimagine our educational system in times of both calm and crisis. Drawing on the work of political scientist Kathleen Thelen and economist and philosopher Amartya Sen, this article introduces a Framework for adaptability that outlines examples of flexible and equitable adaptation to change. The authors define adaptability as the ability of educational systems to respond to rapidly changing circumstances while maintaining stability, promoting equality, and expanding substantive freedoms and well-being. The key components of educational adaptability are: (1) cooperation, (2) inclusion, and (3) flexibility. This article describes how adaptability in education might be facilitated at individual, community, state and global levels. The authors call attention to a critical need to collectivize our approach to risk at the level of national governance. They suggest that this can be achieved by coordinating various professional, scientific, corporate, community and governmental stakeholders in order to ensure continuity in educational service provision, promoting lifelong learning and overall workforce participation.

Over the span of 20–30 years, evidence suggests that participation in adult education (inclusive of undertaking for job-related purposes) is on a significant upward trend since the 1990s in most OECD and many EU countries. The upward trend may be attributed partly to the increasing interest by employers (private, public, and non-governmental
sectors) to invest in adult education due to its substantial benefits. As employer investment grows, who gets employer support to participate in adult education thus becomes an important research and policy question, particularly since inequality in participation may exacerbate social inequalities of various kinds. The purpose of this article is to explore whether the trend of increased participation in employer-supported
adult education is exacerbating or mitigating the Matthew effect across different countries. It provides estimates of the change in probabilities of participation in employer-supported adult education by various individual, socio-demographic, and job-related characteristics associated with adults between the period of 1994–1998 and 2013. Results of the data analysis based on the 2013 OECD Programme for the International Assessment of Competencies (PIAAC) and the 1994–1998 International Adult Literacy
Survey (IALS) suggest that the growth of employer-supported adult education may be playing a role in mitigating inequality in participation. Reduced differences over time in the probabilities of participation between contrast categories associated with various individual, socio-demographic, and job-related characteristics (e. g. women compared to men, lowest educated compared to highest educated, etc.) are interpreted as reduced
inequalities in the probability of participation associated with those contrast categories. Further research on additional and updated datasets is warranted to explore the trend of whether growing employer support for adult education is exacerbating or mitigating inequality in adult education participation in different countries.