The purpose of this study was to review the historical change of education reform in Korea from 1945 to the present; to evaluate it in terms of five criteria such as opportunity of education, democratic process of reform formation, diversity of educat ...

The purpose of this study was to review the historical change of education reform in Korea from 1945 to the present; to evaluate it in terms of five criteria such as opportunity of education, democratic process of reform formation, diversity of educational system, autonomy of unit school, and satisfaction of the clients: and to propose the suggestions to education reform hereafter in the perspectives of this study results.

The researcher recommends the following suggestions in conclusion.

First, in order to avoid political influence and top-down authoritative reform movements apart from real educational situations on site, the functions of education reform should be decentralized downwardly from the short-term, tentative reform committee commissioned by the president to the misnistry of education, to regional or local superintendents, and to the unit school.

Second, reform tasks should be minimized to several core issues in terms of priority criteria as timeliness and importance instead of so many all-inclusive tasks including trivial matters. In so doing, teachers and other object groups of reform can free from ambiguity and burden of reform itself.

Third, national curricula have been changed so frequently in accordance with reform movements that they may not be implemented fully and successfully to teaching and learning situations in schools. The national curricula should be excluded from educational reform projects so as to minimize the political logic and enhance excellence of education safely in long term perspectives.

Fourth, Many reform projects have been failed and remained only paper works because of fund problems. Hereafter, any reform projects should be supported financially.
Fifth, the preconditions such as small class-size, low teacher-students ratio, poor job-environment and salary of teachers, modernization of school facilities, etc. should be solved before enforcing reform tasks.

Finally, Korean education reform should be relevant to Korean situations. Whatever good reform cases succeeded in foreign countries not only fail to succeed in Korea, but also repeat so many trial and error processes. Education reform project should be made in accordance with Korean history, tradition, and emotions of the public at large.