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영어

This study explores the characteristics of technical education in the era of wartime colonial Korea by analyzing Kyungsung technical public school(京城公立工業學校), the largest technical institution in colonial Korea. The technical education of colonial Korea had not been formed until 1930's. After the Sino-Japanese War, seven technical institutions of the secondary level were cursorily established in colonial Korea. This rapid and hasty beginning of technical education was attributed to the sharply rising demand for technical professionals in the munitions industry. At this time, colonial Korea lagged behind colonial Taiwan by a decade in training technical professionals. Kyungsung technical public school, established in 1899, had been in stagnant for a long time. However, by the need for technical education, Government-General started to reform Kyungsung technical public school and construct new buildings in Yeongdeungpo-Gu linked with the Kyungsung-Incheon industrial district, one of the representative industrial areas gathering the small and medium-sized machine industry in Korea. Despite severely ethnic discrimination, Kyungsung technical public school was encouraged to select Korean students by Government-General. Consequentially, the rate of Korean students in the school increased from 30% to 50%, fostered by the urgent need for technical manpower during the wartime. Although the curriculum of Kyungsung technical public school was based on that of the general schools, the education in Kyungsung technical public school was actually focusing on practical courses related to a job, especially in the field of mining engineering. While the training program was at a high level in the initial stage, the program could scarcely function after 1943. Because Kyungsung technical public school had tried to select high-quality students from the elementary school in Korea, the alumni were extremely proud of having entered the school. After the independence, however, many alumni cannot help but build their careers in the military industry or education field, not in the same field they had learned. Arguably, this means that the continuity of training technical professionals from the Japanese colonial period to the post-independence Korea would be undermined.