A Comparative Analysis of Secondary-School Teacher Recruitment in China and South Korea

Abstract

How education systems govern entry into teaching shapes teacher quality, supply, and distribution, yet no study has compared China and South Korea across the full recruitment chain with explanatory intent. This study is a two-case comparative policy analysis within comparative education, using qualitative document analysis of a purposively assembled corpus of statutes, constitutional decisions, ministry and provincial or county documents, and official statistics—covering institutional history from the founding statutes onward and current arrangements through the 2022–2026 examination and diagnostic cycles, itemized in a supplementary source archive. Five dimensions—teacher preparation, qualification review, appointment examination, welfare and bonus-point policy, and final selection and appointment—were compared through descriptive coding and classified by evidence tier, with historical institutionalism (path dependence, critical junctures) as the explanatory lens. The systems differ systematically in a repeated pattern of ownership: South Korea fixes the statutory framework of routes, certificate, examination, and post at the national level, with administration delegated to provincial offices, whereas China locates ownership of the post—and the examinations, incentives, and mobility rules organized around it—at the county and municipal level. The analysis develops an institutional account under which this divergence follows from a prior choice—whether the teacher is constituted as an educational official or as public-institution personnel within locally authorized establishments—and shows the documentary record, including Korea’s post-1990 replacement of appointment preferences by a nationally uniform examination, to be consistent with that account. The contribution is a full-chain, bilateral, explanatory comparison; lessons between the systems are conditional on stated institutional features.