Post-school education and training policy in development states: the cases of Taiwan and South Korea

The integration of economic and skill formation policies in South Korea and Taiwan through modified forms of state planning have been more successful than free-market alternatives in contributing both to economic growth and raising levels of educational achievement. However, this pattern of integration is now coming under pressure from a number of directions - the declining power of the State to compel employers to train their workers, the realization that too tight a link between economic and skill formation policies has inhibited educational creativity and the impact of the global economy. These influences have produced substantial reform of the education and training system in South Korea, but more evolutionary policies have been pursued in Taiwan. But in both countries there remains a commitment to steering the economy, which is absent in Britain. In the absence of such a commitment a strategic approach to education and skill formation is likely to have only a limited impact.