Ⅰ. Preface
In Korea, Professional Graduate School (PGS) was begun with the establishment of Administration PGS and Health PGS in Seoul National University in April, 1959. During the last 25 years, the number of PGS has rapidly increased to 102 scho...
Ⅰ. Preface
In Korea, Professional Graduate School (PGS) was begun with the establishment of Administration PGS and Health PGS in Seoul National University in April, 1959. During the last 25 years, the number of PGS has rapidly increased to 102 schools that have 24,222 students as of year 1983, which amount to 60 percent of total graduate schools and 40 percent of their students.
The purpose of this article is to find out problems of the present PGS's curriculums and to search for new improvable directions of curriculums through the analysis of their construction and develpment that decide the contents and quality of PGS's education. Objects for the analysis are curriculums of 58 PGS selected out of 102 PGS.
Ⅱ. Problems of curriculums are presented by analysis as follows.
1. Neither legal standard nor a certain model is found for the construction of PGS curriculum. There is a general rule that total 24 credits are required and maximum 6 credits are allowed for one semester in PGS, as in general graduate schools. And PGS has 5-semester system, while general graduate school has 4-semester system. But even these general rules are not practically kept in PGS.
Among 58 PGS, 26 PGS require 24 credits, 4 PGS require 26 credits, 2 PGS require 27 credits, 1 PGs requires 28 credits, 1 PGS requires 29 credits and other 24 PGS require 30 credits for graduation. Credits of graduation thesis are included in above credits in some PGS but not in other PGS.
2. Construction of all courses is divided into four categories as common course, major course, optional course and basic course. But the assigned credits for each course are different in each PGS.
1) 6-8 credits are generally assigned to common course but some PGS assign 14 credits to this course. In 14 PGS, no credit is assigned to common course.
2) In case of major course, 8-12 credits are generally assigned, however, some PGS assign only 4 credits while others assign 26 credits.
3) There is only 11 PGS that assign 6-12 credits to optional course. The other PGS assign no credit to this course. Even in these 11 PGS, most of the optional courses have the tendency of major optional.
4) 2-16 credits are assigned to basic course for the students who changed their major.
3. Problems in the development of PGS are as follows.
1) There are only 3 PGS whose academic terms are 5 semesters. All the other PGS's terms are 4 semesters. Generally, 2-6 credits are assigned to graduation thesis but no credit is given to it in 26 PGS.
2) Problems in development of common course are; class size is too large and too much credits are assigned to this course. Some PGS assign upto 14 credits to this course.
3) Most of major courses are fixed for major subjects, which does not allow flexibility. Furthermore, the development of major course often ignores the sequence of each course by taking non-grade system.
4) Basic course is given from 1st to 3rd semester, which cause contradiction of learning basic course after major course.
5) On the contrary of Law of Education which allows students to take final examination after finishing one semester and getting 24 credits, only those students who acquired 18 credits during 3 semesters are qualified to take final examination and foregn language test in PGS.
Ⅲ. Conclusion
It is not needed to determine a standard for the construction and development of PGS's curriculum which should be diverse according to the characteristics of each science and its educational policy. But the result of this research analysis shows that each 58 PGS has its own different standard for the construction and development of curriculum. This situation cannot be regarded as diversity and autonomy of science but as confusion and disorder. In this respect, it is strongly recommended that there should be common measure for the construction and development of PGS's curriculum.