농학계 대학의 실태와 대응방안에 관한 연구: 농학계 대학 교수들의 의견을 중심으로

Abstract

Until recently, studies on agricultural colleges have focused on preparing internal innovative measures in the perspectives of students, who are the subject of colleges, while little studies have been conducted in the perspectives of professors who are another subject of colleges and have a considerable influence over college communities. Thus, this study aimed to seek the direction of change of agricultural colleges based on the opinions of agricultural college professors. To this end, questionnaires were distributed to 67 deans and professors of 24 agricultural colleges across the country for analysis. The findings show that more than 70% of the respondents had positive views on the future of agriculture and agricultural areas, while there were negative perspectives on the advancement into the industry due to the external factors, such as social awareness. In addition, it was considered that the qualitative growth of and interest in agriculture, including the application rate of agricultural colleges, have been generally decreasing. It was also found that professors of agricultural colleges in large cities or those with large size requested the transformation of their schools into non-agricultural colleges, while professors of agricultural colleges in small and medium cities or those with small size requested the change to the practice-based colleges with the industry-college cooperation, showing variance by region or college environment. Thus, policy promotion and research need to be carried out across the entire society to positively enhance the recognition of agriculture and rural areas. Also, a comprehensive improvement in quality should be sought by developing multilateral academic fields and focusing on educating talents based on agriculture and rural areas. Furthermore, an effort needs to be made to secure the competitiveness in relation to other academic areas through the systematic change to small-sized specialized colleges, taking regional characteristics and college conditions into account, beyond the competing structure among agricultural colleges.