State policy of the Republic of Korea in the field of school education in the middle of the 1940's - 1970's

The article deals with the process of formation of the modern educational system in the Republic of Korea in the period from the second half of the 1940s until the 1970s, focusing on the changes of government's policy in this sphere. The author states that during the early years of the Republic the U.S. Military Government had a significant impact on Korean educational system that was seen as an important factor on Korea's way to a peaceful, democratic, anti-Communist society. In the 1940s and 1950s with the financial assistance of the United States, the foundations of state universal primary education were laid, though private schools still played an important role in the development of the secondary education. Changes in state educational policy in the 1960s and 1970s were taken in order to standardize school education to provide the economy with qualified work force that led to strengthening of control over both state and private schools and their integration into a single educational system.