“KDI School of Public Policy and Management will continue to strive for excellence and quality as it celebrates its 20th anniversary this year.” These were the comments echoed by the former Minister for Education, Science and Technology and the School’s first Academic Dean, Professor Ju-Ho LEE. 

Speaking to the Globe, Professor LEE said that KDI School had expanded its size over the years, but the focus on providing premier quality education had not changed. “We are becoming a global leader in our field, an innovator. We’ve done well for the last 20 years and the work must continue. There is simply no room for complacency if KDI School is to become the best in the world. We must continue to be innovative and unique,” he said.

According to Professor LEE, the decision to establish KDI School was made following the education reform efforts of the KIM Young-sam Government in 1995. “The establishment of international graduate schools was an important agenda. So an Education Committee was set up to oversee the establishment of international graduate schools and around four to five were selected including Seoul National University, Yonsei University, Korea University and others.”

Following on from this, the education taskforce team for KDI School was launched with Professor LEE, Jong-Il YOU, Sang-Woo NAM, Hun Joo PARK and Seung-Joo LEE as founding members. At the time, Professor LEE thought that the Korea Development Institute was the best think tank in Asia and as such, it was only right that a graduate school was established to nurture the reservoir of knowledge that it had accumulated over the years.

“The KDI served enormously for the economic development of Korea, playing an important part in designing key policies. Some KDI Fellows thought of establishing a graduate program because the KDI had very good manpower and accumulated huge knowledge and experience in the development of Korea,” said he.

“I agreed with establishing new things, especially universities and new projects that would bring about big changes. You need a new player to introduce something new. We thought that a new player could do a different thing, a different innovation in higher education in Korea. That’s why we decided to establish an international graduate school because there were no schools that taught 100% in English as well as invited foreign students and foreign scholars before KDI School.”

“We started from scratch, so it’s different from existing universities. We’ve taken advantage of starting from nothing,” Professor LEE shared. Professor LEE maintained that KDI School was revolutionizing the education of the era in that it examined the future of Korea’s higher education.

“Although the KDI has mainly economists, economics and management are inseparable particularly when you think about educating people. Because one has to be multidisciplined, we thought of a new school that can contribute to policies and also to management in the private sector. We have been trying to invite scholars from diverse academic backgrounds not just limited to economic principles, but we also invite experts from management, international relations and so forth,” he said. Professor LEE added that inviting foreign scholars and students from around the world and discussing policy issues were important for both the Korean government and the people.

By Rosa DALITUICAMA [2017 MDP, Fiji]