Ministry of SMEs and Startups Announces New Recruitment for Host Institutions of SME Workforce Training Universities

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced on the 14th that it will newly recruit lead universities and project groups to participate in the SME Workforce Training University project.

The SME Workforce Training University project aims to cultivate talented individuals through university-SME industry-academia cooperation education and promote the inflow of workforce into SMEs. It consists of the 'SME Contract Department' and 'Technical Officer' programs.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

The SME Contract Department is a talent cultivation program based on a work-first-then-study approach, where universities establish degree programs and support SME employees (or prospective hires) in obtaining degrees (from associate to doctoral degrees, each course lasting 2 years), nurturing them as core personnel for companies. The Technical Officer program provides a 4-year linked education, including 2 years at vocational high schools and 2 years at junior colleges, systematically training technical personnel required in SME workplaces.

This year, the new recruitment scale includes 3 SME Contract Departments and 1 Technical Officer program. To meet workforce demand due to industrial structure reorganization, priority will be given to future promising fields such as advanced industries and regional strategic industries.

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups plans to annually support approximately 70 million KRW for the newly selected SME Contract Departments and about 320 million KRW for the Technical Officer project groups to operate educational courses.

For students in the SME Contract Departments, partial tuition fees (65~100%) will be supported during the 2-year degree program, and students participating in the Technical Officer program will receive support such as priority recommendation for industrial technical personnel service.

Park Jong-chan, Director of SME Policy at the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, stated, “Through operating curricula that reflect the on-site demands of SMEs, we expect to cultivate excellent technical skilled personnel in new technology and new industry fields, contributing to youth job creation and alleviating workforce shortages in SMEs.” He added, “We plan to continuously expand SME workforce training programs such as SME Contract Departments and Technical Officer programs to nurture specialized personnel in advanced industry sectors.”