Customized Corporate Specialized Course, 50% Priority Hiring of Graduates
Joint Development by 406 Universities and 1503 Corporate Research Institutes
[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Koo Dae-sun] Gyeongbuk Province is set to fully launch an educational innovation project that links local companies and universities to cultivate talent specialized in key industries.
On the 31st, Gyeongbuk Province held a business agreement ceremony at Kumoh National Institute of Technology to establish a talent cultivation system based on local industry.
Earlier, Gyeongbuk Province created the nation’s first “Local Era Policy Bureau” and, over the past month, visited key industries in the Gumi area such as semiconductor and defense companies to develop concrete action plans addressing the top priorities raised by the industry: talent cultivation and technology development.
Last year, SK Siltron approved an 855 billion KRW wafer facility investment plan and announced a plan to invest 2.3 trillion KRW over five years until 2027, while LG Innotek also announced an investment plan worth 140 million KRW.
Among the approximately 3,300 employees working at Gumi SK Siltron, about 10% of engineers responsible for technology development mostly graduated from universities in the Seoul metropolitan area, while 80% of on-site technicians graduated from technical colleges in the Daegu area, with only a small number coming from local universities.
Through this business agreement, Kumoh National Institute of Technology will establish customized curricula and practical training systems identical to on-site systems in collaboration with local companies, and prioritize employment for 50% of outstanding graduates who complete the specialized education program.
The budget for operating the education program and building facilities and equipment will be borne by the province and city, aiming to create a virtuous cycle structure for locally led industrial talent cultivation.
To enable excellent technicians with associate degrees to obtain master's and doctoral degrees, Kumoh National Institute of Technology will establish a night school department to support engineers in pursuing their dreams locally without tuition burdens.
Additionally, Kumoh Technical High School and Gumi Electronics Technical High School plan to open the “Era of High School Graduate Young Technicians” by operating education programs taught directly by professors and corporate researchers, supporting employment at local companies, providing free tuition for bachelor's degree acquisition for high school graduates, offering salaries at the level of large corporations, and granting a 300% bonus upon return from military service.
LIG Nex1 pointed out, “Personnel from other regions such as Seoul and Busan move to the metropolitan area after working for 3 to 4 years, causing significant losses to companies, and a lot of budget and time are required from technology research to production and sales.”
As a countermeasure, they emphasized the need for schools to secure talent by establishing scholarship systems and supporting dormitory living expenses through funds, and to hire young and capable overseas professors who can passionately solve corporate tasks through theory and experiments.
Gyeongbuk Province, universities, and local governments plan to invest more than 10% of available local government resources to solve problems proposed by companies and introduce a “foreign regional visa” to directly attract excellent IT graduate students and high school students from CIS countries, Southeast Asia, and other overseas regions as international students invited by local governments to address these issues.
Wonik QnC, which has been producing semiconductor parts in Gumi for over 20 years, stated, “The biggest challenge for small and medium-sized enterprises is technology development 5 to 10 years down the line, a critical issue for corporate survival, and university participation in ‘new product development projects’ and application-oriented education centered on graduate schools are necessary.”
Gyeongbuk Province plans to support research funds for specialized programs where 406 university research institutes and 1,503 corporate research institutes jointly participate in fundamental and applied technologies of local industries, creating a virtuous cycle where technology development directly leads to products and profits for companies.
Lee Cheol-woo, Governor of Gyeongbuk Province, said, “Local small and medium-sized enterprises are on the brink of collapse due to a lack of talent, and the voices from the field say that too much time and money are needed until technology development is released as a product.”
The governor added, “Now local universities and local governments must provide the answers,” and said, “We will open the era of local regions viewed by Seoul youth by joining hands and operating a task force centered on three teams?talent cultivation, regulatory reform, and improvement of living conditions?investing more than 10% of available local government resources so that companies can work without worrying about talent.”
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