Strengthening the Governance of Skills Systems by OECD

Author:OECD
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: governance/employment/education
Publisher: OECD Publishing
Published: 2020-03-27T00:00:00+00:00

Analysis

The following section discusses the strengths and challenges of Suwon’s lifelong learning system.

Strengths

High participation and a culture of lifelong learning is fostered by broad access

One of the most important strengths of Suwon City’s lifelong learning system is the well-established lifelong learning culture among Suwon’s citizens, which goes along with a high participation rate in lifelong learning programmes, a strong willingness of citizens to contribute to their further development, for instance by participating in roundtables, and a strong commitment of citizens to work as lifelong learning teachers. The city managed to increase the number of learners from 376 000 in 2011 to more than 790 000 in 2015 (UIL, 2017[14]), and the literacy rate in the city is moving towards 100% (UIL, 2017[14]). The key factor to achieving this was accessibility.

The city keeps the financial hurdle (i.e. fees) low and guarantees easy physical access to lifelong learning classes. High registration fees might stop interested candidates from signing up for a course. Research by the Gyeonggi Lifelong Learning Institute shows that almost 45% of courses in Suwon City cost less than KRW 40 000 (EUR 30), and fewer than 20% charge more than KRW 50 000 (EUR 38). Furthermore, the dense network of more than 600 learning facilities enables all citizens to reach a learning facility within a ten-minute walk. This is particularly important to enable older citizens to participate. The city government monitors the network of learning facilities to maintain and even extend the network.

The city finances the lifelong learning centre as an infrastructure hub and provides essential personnel, in particular the expertise of the two lifelong learning educators, who are specifically trained to design budgets for lifelong learning and have an overview of the relevant bodies within the government. Korea’s approach of offering a specific lifelong learning training programme is an important factor in increasing the capacity of cities, provinces and companies to engage with lifelong learning.

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