Korea has reduced the share of individuals without upper secondary education while the proportion of tertiary-educated individuals increased rapidly over the past 14 years.  In 2010, Korea had slightly above the OECD average enrolment rates in early childhood education among four-year-olds; but that level of education is largely funded from private sources.  Korea increased expenditure on primary, secondary and post-secondary non-tertiary education significantly between 2000 and 2009. Much of that increase was abosorbed in reducing class size.  On average, Korea has a relatively young teaching force at the primary level. Teachers are well-paid in comparison to teachers in other OECD countries. Korea has reduced the share of individuals without upper secondary education while the proportion of tertiary-educated individuals increased rapidly over the past 14 years… In 1997, 38% of 25-64 year-olds in Korea had not attained an upper secondary education; by 2010, this proportion had decreased to 20%-a drop of 18 percentage points over 14 years, compared with an average decrease of 11 percentage points across OECD countries. At the same time, the share of tertiary graduates increased from 20% in 1997 to 40% in 2010-the largest percentage-point increase among all OECD countries (Table A1.4). …to the extent that Korea now has the highest proportion of 25-34 year-olds who have attained at least an upper secondary education among all other OECD countries. In 2010, 98% of 25-34 year-old Koreans attained an upper secondary educationthe highest proportion among OECD countries. This is 55 percentage points higher than the attainment rate of 55-64 year-olds in KOREA-Country Note-Education at a Glance 2012: OECD Indicators © OECD 2 Korea, showing the magnitude of the expansion of upper secondary education over just one generation (Table A1.2a). In addition, 65% of 25-34 year-olds have completed tertiary educationagain, the highest proportion among OECD countries (Table A1.3a). While more girls than boys aspire to high-status careers… Some 61.4% of 15-year-old boys and girls expect to work in high-status careers, such as legislators, senior officials, managers and professionals, a proportion greater than the OECD average of 54.5%. Korean girls are 3.8 percentage points more likely to expect to work in high-status careers than boys (Table A4.1). However, when it comes to planning a career in engineering and computing, including architecture, the picture looks very different: 12.4% of boys report aspiring to such a career while only 2.6% of girls do. However, more girls than boys report that they want to pursue a career in health services (Tables A4.2, A4.3 and Chart A4.2). * Countries are ranked in descending order of values.

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The Problem Research on South Korean women entrepreneurs in the information technology (IT) industry is limited, and thus learning how they start and develop their businesses will address a gap in the literature. In addition, as our previous study on women entrepreneurs in Korea encompassed all industries, we did not sufficiently capture how women entrepreneurs in the IT industry started and developed their businesses. We feel a strong need to conduct a follow-up study on three women entrepreneurs who (a) started an IT business to become independent; (b) have stayed in their businesses for approximately 20 years; and (c) became role models as women entrepreneurs in the industry. The Solution We conducted semi-structured interviews with three women entrepreneurs in the IT industry and analyzed each case on three themes: motivation, challenges, and success factors. Although each case has its distinctive features, we found that all cases had success factors in common: technical expertise, positive outlook, adherence to business principles, work centrality, and networking. Particularly, the three women entrepreneurs’ positive outlook was the key success factor that helped them overcome challenges they faced in business development. The Stakeholders Given the study findings on women entrepreneurs’ personal factors (e.g., positive outlook, technical expertise) and external factors (e.g., networking), human resource development (HRD) practitioners can develop leadership programs to share those success factors with aspiring women entrepreneurs in Korea and other countries so that they can develop their own competencies and strategies from early on.

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