Improper Garbage Disposal
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With more college graduates than jobs, the government wrestles with what to do with themSouth Korea is beginning to wrestle with the unappetizing fact that too many of its young are in college. Despite the very real success of its economy, the country can’t manufacture enough jobs for its graduates – of which it produces a lot.
Singapore, Taiwan and other Asian countries to some extent face the same glut. However, South Korea seems in a class by itself. Some 86 percent of all high school graduates go on to college, and most expect to graduate with a degree. About 3.3 million students are enrolled in 347 universities – by one calculation one of every 14 South Koreans is a university student. A full 80 percent of parents fully expect their children to graduate with a degree. According to a study by the Samsung Economic Research Institute, the number of students in college is actually lowering gross domestic product by a full percentage point.
The country is regularly faced with the odd phenomenon of newspaper stories about many of its brightest graduates who are forced to enroll in vocational schools in order to get a job after graduation – including a recent story in the Korea Herald about a young woman with a degree in French who enrolled in a course to become a Starbucks barista. Other tales have philosophy graduates learning to become bakers. Fewer than half of those who graduated in 2010 had found full time jobs by the end of 2011.
That has pushed the South Korean government to promote vocational skills as an alternative to college, with President Lee Myung-bak turning up to open the Sudo Electric Technical High School in 20. Sudo is one of 21 so-called Meister Schools modeled on German vocational schools, that are being funded by the government and which guarantee graduates jobs.
However, critics say lots more must be done and that in fact the entire education system must be redesigned. The 21 Meister schools are hardly enough, and the practical
With more college graduates than jobs, the government wrestles with what to do with themSouth Korea is beginning to wrestle with the unappetizing fact that too many of its young are in college. Despite the very real success of its economy, the country can’t manufacture enough jobs for its graduates – of which it produces a lot.
Singapore, Taiwan and other Asian countries to some extent face the same glut. However, South Korea seems in a class by itself. Some 86 percent of all high school graduates go on to college, and most expect to graduate with a degree. About 3.3 million students are enrolled in 347 universities – by one calculation one of every 14 South Koreans is a university student. A full 80 percent of parents fully expect their children to graduate with a degree. According to a study by the Samsung Economic Research Institute, the number of students in college is actually lowering gross domestic product by a full percentage point.
The country is regularly faced with the odd phenomenon of newspaper stories about many of its brightest graduates who are forced to enroll in vocational schools in order to get a job after graduation – including a recent story in the Korea Herald about a young woman with a degree in French who enrolled in a course to become a Starbucks barista. Other tales have philosophy graduates learning to become bakers. Fewer than half of those who graduated in 2010 had found full time jobs by the end of 2011.
That has pushed the South Korean government to promote vocational skills as an alternative to college, with President Lee Myung-bak turning up to open the Sudo Electric Technical High School in 20. Sudo is one of 21 so-called Meister Schools modeled on German vocational schools, that are being funded by the government and which guarantee graduates jobs.
However, critics say lots more must be done and that in fact the entire education system must be redesigned. The 21 Meister schools are hardly enough, and the practical