No-contact education is on the rise in Korea as well, following the trend of the times.

Do you remember the terms ‘internet lecture’ and ‘online lecture?’ Most Korean SAT generations prepared their college entrance test at academies or with EBS by taking Internet lectures or online lectures. Internet lecture, which was considered something exclusive for private education or college entrance education has now become an essential thing all people should know about. Yes, it’s because of COVID-19. In Korea, implementation of untact education, in other words, no-contact education is being delayed as there are differences in its effect compared to face-to-face education, security issues, geographical conditions, etc. But now, following the trend of the times, no-contact education is on the rise.

Blossoming of the No-contact Education

With the subjects of no-contact education expanding to public education and higher education, its paradigm is changing.

According to the 2020 January report carried out by the education market analysis business HolonIQ, the edu-tech market size among the entire education market is expected to reach 342 billion dollars by 2025, which takes up about 4.3%, compared to that of 2018. But according to research data announced by KDB (Korea Development Bank) Future Strategy Institute, domestic e-learning market has recorded a 9.2% growth throughout 2011~2015, which is about 3% lower than that of the international yearly average growth rate of 12.5%. South Korea is a huge IT country, but when it comes to education, innovative technology failed to be implemented, and investment has been relatively slow.

In 2020, public education all began to carry out no-contact classes due to COVID-19. On April 9th, beginning with 9th graders and high school seniors, EBS, e-learning site opened the semester online. At first, the system was unstable, and there were connection errors, but it started to get stabilized, and such issues were eliminated. Online classes have been extended to December.

Zoom, Teams, Cloud, and other programs that allow two-way communication have been increasingly popular.

Previously online education was a one-way learning method like ‘internet lectures,’ where you would have paper textbooks and learn through Internet videos. But as the learners went beyond a certain group of students but expanded to all public education learners and higher education learners, the paradigm of no-contact education has been changing. Public education and higher education cannot evaluate the learners’ sincerity just with the time they spent watching the videos. Rich quality of homework and curriculum, various evaluation standards, etc. are being created.

Programs such as Zoom, Teams, Cloud, are being used more frequently, and the users’ understanding and level of learning of them have also been surging. Cultural centers, life education centers, company education, etc. have been developing, too. Many Korean companies support corporate training. As a corporate training support method has been transitioned online, employees can now take training, which they want, more conveniently. We met with Hyundai Mobis R&D Human resources team manager Han Dae-hee and looked into software training cases to see ‘what happens when a company takes on no-contact training.’

Software Training, Essential for ‘Fusion Talents’

Hyundai Mobis officially opened their newly transformed no-contact online SW education platform.

Hyundai Mobis has been providing various training and special lectures since 2018. And recently they have been transitioning their course into no-contact ones with software training first. “For R&D technology education course, which mainly involves actual practicing, we have carried out mostly face-to-face classes so that people can communicate directly with the lecturer and fellow trainees and build their skills. But since COVID-19, the whole company has been quick on changing all education courses into no-contact classes.” As manager Han Dae-hee said, Hyundai Mobis quickly transitioned their concept and theory classes into no-contact classes and redeveloped their R&D technology education course into online classes with existing course curriculum and lecturers.

Recently Hyundai Mobis’ focus of no-contact education is coding education, which used to be carried out as group training, to develop software (hereafter SW) capacity. All courses including SW Language course, virtual practice environment with simulator, etc. were totally renewed in a no-contact manner, and new online SW education platform has officially opened. Why did Hyundai Mobis put so much work into SW education? “As electrification of automobile parts is being carried out quickly, and the automobile industry itself is changing fast, the demand for future technologies such as SW, AI, and big data have been increasing; according to the external environmental factors of future automobile, we have been operating SW academy since 2018,” manager Han Dae-hee explained in detail. Exclusive, original SW development capacity is a must to prepare for future automobile market.

Hyundai Mobis’ Very Own SW Education Platform

All Hyundai Mobis employees can take all lectures on SW education platform for free.

All Hyundai Mobis employees can take all lectures on SW education platform and practice coding for free. How is it different from the previous SW education? “First of all, usually the corporate training course is allowed of connection within the company, but Hyundai Mobis’ SW education goes beyond the existing program tool installation-based environment and is constructed to be a web-based version so that you can use any platform you like ？ smartphone, tablet, PC, etc. ？ and take the course whenever and wherever you want.”

We also got a peek of contents appropriate for no-contact education courses that are currently being developed by Hyundai Mobis. “The whole course is consisted of 45 classes for introduction to SW development including basics of programming, algorithm, AI, etc. SW Language, virtual practicing environment with simulator, recent SW coding platform,… so many classes are being provided. As for the contents, as the trend reflects diverse taste regarding the contents, we have brief courses dealing with basic grammar, courses that move on from structures to practices with light examples, courses that give out tasks for certain situations,… one can opt for various types of courses even for same language and practices depending on personal tendencies.”

Once you have completed the course, you can see how good you are through the company SW algorithm competition.

Also, the SW education learned this way can be evaluated through a company competition. Hyundai Mobis also holds the ‘SW algorithm competition’ for their employees to settle the self-led SW development culture. The SW algorithm competition, which was held for the second time this year, gave out an international information Olympiad level questions, which was very well received by not just the researchers but also by around 100 employees including regular desk job holders, etc.

How Will No-contact Education Evolve?

Hyundai Mobis is trying to develop capacity in the future automobile industry through no-contact corporate training.

How will Hyundai Mobis’ no-contact education evolve? “At the moment, we have around 3,000 SW learners which will be greatly expanded to around 5,000 next year; we will actively support our employees’ SW development capacity growth. Through such education courses, we expect to create synergy by combining the accumulated future automobile HW design capacity and SW technology.” As we wrapped up the interview, manager Han Dae-hee told us about Hyundai Mobis’ ambitions. No-contact education will surely get bigger. We also anticipate that corporate training will take on no-contact education and create ‘fusion talents’ by allowing them to learn anything and everything without physical limits and also learn through their works.

Written by. Lee Jong-chul (Byline network)