Korean Universities Fail to Prepare Students for Job Market

Korean universities are declining in international rankings because they fail to prepare students for the global job market.

Rankings firm Quacquarelli Symonds released its latest global ranking on Wednesday and 28 out of 30 Korean universities all suffered a drop in employer reputation. Seoul National University fell from 41st to 45th and Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) from 81st to 88th. The ranking is based on the opinions of HR staff at top global companies.

Graduates need exceptional competence in problem-solving, communication and teamwork, but Korean universities continue to stress knowledge and information-gathering.

Ben Sowter at QC said it has become easier to access information electronically, so it's more important to be able to utilize and handle such data.

Overall, MIT ranked first in the world, while SNU came 37th, KAIST 41st, Korea University 83rd, Pohang University of Science and Technology 87th and Sungkyunkwan University 95th.

But no Korean university ranks among the global top 30, while universities in China, Japan and Singapore all outranked their Korean counterparts, with Nanyang Technological University and National University of Singapore in joint 11th place, Tsinghua University in 16th, Tokyo University in 22nd, and Hong Kong University in 25th.