Research Focus
East Asia's economic growth during the latter half of the twentieth century was fueled by a well-educated population. In Korea, for instance, the educated workforce enabled the country to quickly move up the industrial ladder and catch up to the technology frontiers of advanced economies. Even as many countries in the region have become developed economies, education remains critical to powering the continued development of their societies.
Today, however, the era of rapid digital transformation requires new models of education. Educational systems must change to support new skills—hard and soft, adapt to new models of work and employment, tackle increasing inequality, and train people to work alongside robots. The very nature of education must change and become more innovative, co-creative, and collaborative.
The Education and Development in the Digital Economy research project evaluates the current state of our educational systems and aims to propose new directions critical for the next stages of economic progress. A considerable part of this research examines the Asia-Pacific region, including China, India, Japan, and South Korea.
In a series of papers, Principal Investigator Yong Suk Lee considers how the educational system that allocates students to schools can affect inequality across regions, and the likelihood that students from different socioeconomic backgrounds can access high-quality, tertiary education in South Korea.
Lee also works jointly with collaborators to study university management practices across science and engineering departments and analyze their impact on student learning outcomes in several countries including India and China. This collaborative research also examines how simple interventions can impact creativity among Chinese students. Such assessment will help better understand what factors can improve the quality of science and technology education as well as drive creativity and innovation.
