Korean Education Wave in Southeast Asia: Current Status and Development Strategy

The Korean Wave (or Hallyu in Korean) refers to fast growth in the popularity of South Korean culture. is spreading in many parts of the world and especially in the Asian countries in a form of Korean-Pop (or K-Pop) and Korean-Drama (or K-Drama). This paper examines the sustainability of the Korean Wave by analyzing the industries other than entertainment such as education. culture and advanced technologies. The main focus of this case study is Korean education system in terms of its historical and social phenomena which we call "the zeal for education" in Korea. We conducted an extensive search in the journals and research papers published since January 2011 that allowed us to apply SWOT analysis to formulate S-O strategies for sustainable Korean-Wave in education. The implications for Korean education wave in Southeast Asia that we drew from the analysis of this case are follows: first, provide the education products that are customized and segmented for each ASEAN country. Second, provide the convenient living infrastructures for the inbound ASEAN students to Korea. And provide the harmonized education policies by linking the learning with the job opportunities. The challenging question remained is 'how to cope with the global responsibility of Korean Wave in education with the fever of Korean Wave in Asian countries.