The Role of the United States in Developing and Modernizing Higher Education in South Korea 1945-1967.

Abstract

         Higher education in South Korea has been subject to several political, cultural, and philosophical shifts, particularly during the Japanese occupation of the country, which aimed to align it with the cultural orientations of Japanese colonialism, which viewed the Korean Peninsula as a cultural and social extension of itself. After the liberation of Korean territory, successive Korean governments began working to create a new philosophical compass for higher education and its institutions, keeping pace with the new trends in building and philosophizing modern Korea in various fields. Naturally, since the United States played a major role in this change, it became the primary center for effectively contributing to the modernization of higher education in the country by opening up horizons for academic educational cooperation between the two countries, concluding various university contracts between their institutions, and exchanging educational missions between them with the aim of creating an aware generation and providing human resources that believe in the modern trends of both countries, in light of South Korea's need for diverse youthful energies capable of compensating for the shortage of human resources in various sectors, most notably higher education and its institutions.