Making Minds Matter with Bill Costello

S. Korean Teachers Reach for the SKY

By Bill Costello • March 10, 2010 at 1:01 AM

Within South Korea, the three most prestigious universities are Seoul National University, Korea University, and Yonsei University. Collectively, they are referred to by the acronym SKY.

Graduating from a SKY university often leads to a prestigious job with a high salary—especially if the graduate is in the field of education. Opinion polls show that South Koreans view teachers as high-status professionals who make greater contributions to society than any other profession. I recently visited the SKY universities to learn why South Koreans feel this way.

“In Korea, we have a Confucian tradition of respecting teachers,” said Lim Cheolil, associate professor of education at Seoul National University.

The Fall of America’s Universities

By Bill Costello • March 9, 2010 at 2:51 AM

Since 2004, the world’s top 200 universities have been ranked annually by the Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings. Recently, Asian universities have been making significant gains on the U.S., long considered to have the world’s best universities.

In 2008, the U.S. had 37 universities in the top 100 and 58 in the top 200. In 2009, that dropped to 32 and 54, respectively, although 12 of the top 16 universities in the world are still in the U.S. Between 2008 and 2009, Japan went from 10 universities in the top 200 to 11, Hong Kong went from 4 to 5, South Korea went from 3 to 4, and mainland China maintained its position with 6.

Having visited nearly half of these Asian universities and having seen their extensive expenditure on research facilities, I am not surprised when I read about Asian nations making enormous investments in their universities. Asian nations are investing to produce massive numbers of innovative people who can contribute significantly to economic growth.