Comparative Analysis of ICT Integration Initiatives in Korean, German and American Educations

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to compare three ICT initiatives for education reforms by three countries representing different continents with different cultural backgrounds: the Republic of Korea, the Federal Republic of Germany and the United States of America. Through comparison, some convergences and divergences were found as anticipated. Convergences were found especially in terms of intervention of central government and the spectrum of core policies. Divergences were found especially in implementation approaches and processes of policy decision-making regarding ICT integration into education. Comparing divergences among the three countries reveals common tasks for which they may cooperate on in order to resolve mutual problems. Through the observation of school sites of each country, as well as related literatures, one can see that ICT integration is still far from being satisfactory. Thus, it is implied that, in addition to individual country's efforts such as increasing teacher training, diverse international cooperation focused on common problems must be devised among the three countries.