논문 : 실용음악 교육기관의 사회적 역기능에 관한 연구

Not everybody can be a singer or composer. Recently, educational institutions are focusing their curriculum solely on creating expert musicians. For many graduates, it is impossible to find a job in their field when these programs increase the supply of such musicians while ignoring society`s demand. Across the Republic of Korea, about 9,000 applied music students graduate every year from over 120 educational institutions, including two and four year universities and online degree programs. The statistic is over 10,000 when including students who leave school to pursue a music career before graduating. Society must seriously address this issue of unbalanced supply and demand. For example, 1.35 million people audition for just a single winning spot on any popular television talent contest. Now is the time for the music education institution to develop a comprehensive policy to fix this problem. With the lack of demand for expert musicians, universities should limit their specialized degree programs to reduce this excessive supply. This unbalanced supply and demand has been seen before within the classical music education realm. Additionally, the population of university-aged students is declining which will put even more pressure on the educational system. The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology of Korea should guarantee administrative autonomy to universities in regards to their own research environment. However, there should be regulations in place that take into account society`s unbalanced supply and demand when determining the number of students enrolled in a program.