South
Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT and the Institute for Information and
Communications Technology Promotion will hold the inaugural “Innovative Growth
Youth Talent Concentration Training (IGYTCT) Program” from 11 June to 10 July 2018.
The program aims to both address rising youth unemployment in South
Korea by eliminating job mismatches via project-oriented software education for
graduates and job-seekers, and nurture ICT talent in critical technologies of
the 4th Industrial Revolution.
According
to a press release by the Ministry of Science and ICT, the IGYTCT Program is
budgeted at 240 billion won for 2018.
The launch of the program was also
preceded by extensive consultation with relevant stakeholders — a demand survey
was conducted among 80 small-medium
enterprises (SMEs) and 25 private educational institutions, and a poll was also
held among 383 graduates and graduating university students.
The contents of
the IGYTCT Program are designed to reflect the feedback gathered from all
consultative processes. Eschewing
conventional classroom techniques for a project-oriented learning approach that
blends professional mentorship with practical application, the IGYTCT Program
consists of an intensive training regime of 1000 learning hours over 6 months.
According to the Ministry of Science and ICT, more than 50% of the program will
consist of project training by industry experts.
As
part of the South Korean government’s efforts to nurture talent in critical
technologies for the 4th Industrial Revolution, the IGYTCT Program will focus
on the following 8 key aspects: artificial intelligence (AI),
blockchain/fintech, Big Data, augmented and virtual reality, smart factory,
autonomous transportation and drone technology.
By designating these 8 aspects
as core Industry 4.0 technologies and devoting public resources
to nurturing human resources, it is hoped that the IGYTCT Program will help
address South Korea’s South Korea’s potential shortage of skilled personnel in
these fields.
In
addition, the IGYTCT Program also serves as a platform for skills upgrading or
retraining. Despite a shortage of manpower in many industries, a significant
degree of skills mismatch in South Korea has resulted in high structural
unemployment even among the country’s many university graduates.
South
Korea has long grappled with the issue of rising youth unemployment. Since 2005,
the employment rate of persons aged between 15 to 29 in the country have been
decreasing and “remain(ed) at dismally low levels”. In August 2012, youth
employment stood at 7.8%; between July to September 2017, this figure had risen
to a staggering 10.2% despite the Moon administration’s efforts in job sector
recovery. This trend comes in light of steadily rising college admission rates
in South Korea, and critics have pinpointed the severe inflexibility of the
country’s labor regime as the root cause of persistently high youth
unemployment.
The
IGYTCT Program will be overseen by a consortium of domestic and foreign
educational institutions and research institutes as well as large and small enterprises. As an industrial-academic partnership, the convergence of industry expertise
and pedagogical innovation is expected to boost employment and enhance
curriculum development.
To further ensure successful promotion of the program,
the Ministry of Science and ICT has also established a cooperative ecosystem
between 9 government ministries and agencies, including the Korea Agency for
Infrastructure Technology Advancement (KAIA) and Creative Economy Innovation
Center (CCEI).
The selection process for IGYTCT Program
trainees is expected to conclude by the end of August 2018, and training will
officially commence from early September onwards. The Ministry of Science and
ICT expects a total of 1200 trainees to graduate from the program and enter the
workforce by February next year, and has announced that it will invest a total
of 108 billion won over the next four years, with a target of training 5400
talents across all 8 core aspects.