A comparative study on government-sponsored international scholarship programs of Korea and United States

• In Event: Higher Education, Internationalisation, and Students

Proposal

The purpose of this study is to address implications and strategies for further development of the Global Korea Scholarship (GKS), a government-sponsored international scholarship program in Korea by investigating management styles and trends through a comparative analysis with the Fulbright Program.
To achieve the goal, this study selected cross-national study and literature review as research methods. The Comprehensive literature review was conducted to produce criteria for comparison. After modifying and supplementing criteria suggested by former research, management styles, indicators affecting student selection, and efficacy were adopted as criteria.
As the main result of the research, firstly, the mission of the GKS Program of Korea and the Fulbright Program of the United States are similar as they both emphasize public interest. However, they show a substantial gap in the size of the budget and the composition of target nations. Next, while the GKS Program evaluated academic excellence based on quantitative and standardized indicators. the Fulbright Program affirmed that students may be selected based on multifaceted indicators. The third result is that both programs highlighted and utilized the network among scholars for the soft power that can be exercised by them after returning to their own countries.
In conclusion, this study suggests that Korea needs to promote change that can lead GKS to keep pace with global society at the government level by focusing on making it more sustainable and enlarged. This change would be possible by expanding the range of target nations and diversifying the prerequisite for scholarship, which will ultimately lead to attracting and selecting more quality students from variuos backgrounds. Furthermore, the GKS Program should expand its influence in the global society by utilizing the existing network platform to encourage active international cooperation.

Authors

• Shinui Kim, Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation

• Jiwoo Park, Sungkyunkwan University