Chapter 136 Learning from "middle-sized countries" in education reform adapted to globalization

The third thing Japan should learn from is a medium-sized country (population between 10 million and 100 million).These countries, too, have been figuring out ways to adapt to a globalized economy, and they are now bearing clear fruit.One of the most important factors is national education. Representatives of this are Germany and South Korea, two medium-sized countries that have adapted to the globalized economy.Although some people may ask, "Where is your self-esteem if you don't let everyone learn Korea instead of Germany", but I don't want to pursue this point, and it is meaningless to pursue this point.

Now, South Korea has also been affected by the financial crisis, and the entire South Korean economy has shown a fragility that does not match the actual situation, and has once again fallen into crisis.However, after the Asian financial crisis in 1997, South Korea implemented a "globalization strategy", and there are many things we can learn from.Because of this, the South Korean people developed a sense of crisis, and they felt that "it is impossible to continue like this", so great changes have taken place in society. South Korea and Germany haven't changed as much as other countries, because they are not as small as Denmark and Finland, so sometimes they are not as flexible.Moreover, the historical habits and traditional culture of South Korea and Germany are also very strong.

Still, both countries have made progress in adapting to globalization. The surprising changes in South Korea are university education first, followed by changes in large companies such as Samsung.South Korea focuses on how to cultivate global talents in universities and companies, and then let them play a role in the world, which I also said in the chapter on education. Large Korean companies such as Samsung, LG, Hyundai Motor, and Posco (Posco) are active in global business development by recruiting international talents emerging from universities. Samsung has controlled the world with semiconductors, not to mention Hyundai Motor, and it has also become the world's number one in shipbuilding, and these are the results of the above-mentioned reforms. LG also broke into the top three in the world by pushing home appliances, the weak point of Japanese companies.Korean companies have forgotten that they are Korean companies and are changing to a form that can dominate the world.

As I said in the previous chapters, in the first-class universities in South Korea, the general courses are taught in English, and the essence of this kind of education is the education of leadership.In short, South Korea has reformed its education system, said goodbye to the past view that "Korean general-purpose talents cannot be used in the world if they are not general-purpose", and began to actively implement English education. I worked as a professor at Ewha Womans University and Korea University, where I took classes.In the past, the school required me to take classes "in Japanese", but now it has become "in English".Sometimes I feel overwhelmed because Korean students respond to English literally as fast as American students.The English proficiency of Korean college students is so high.