Qualifications for vocational licenses lowered

By Yi Whan-woo

The government will scrap some restrictions to enable more high school graduates to acquire vocational licenses.

The Ministry of Public Administration and Security said Wednesday that high school graduates will be allowed to apply for three of the 16 state-certified licenses next year that demand a college diploma as a qualification.

The three occupational certificates are for environmental pollution analyzers, fire safety and management instructors, and medical-tourism organizers.

The applicants without college-level education will be able to apply for the first two licenses from 2013. The ministry will go over details to permit high school graduates to apply for medical-tourism organizers from 2015.

The move comes after the government’s efforts to increase job availability for jobseekers or workers who do not have a college diploma but already have skills in the applicable field.

“I’m so glad with the ministry’s measures,” said a high school graduate laborer who has worked seven years at a private sewage treatment plant in Seoul.

He said that he previously planned to get a job at the Ministry of Environment that offered positions for those who have a license on analysis of pollution levels in air, water and other environmental circumstances.

“And I was frustrated when I found out that an applicant must be a graduate of a two-year college or an upper-level school. Now I have the chance to go for my dream,” he said.

The ministry said it will maintain its restrictions on educational levels for 13 of the 16 vocational licenses, noting that they demand college-level education.

“Most of those 13 certificates are related to medical treatment, and we require applicants to have specific knowledge in biology, chemistry, and anatomy that can be effectively learned only in university,” a ministry official said.

The government also will exempt application fees from next year for family members of low-income households when they apply to become civil servants, including police officers and firemen.

Other benefits are that they will not be required to pay fees when they apply for 24 certificates that are related to the service industry such as tour guides and hotel managers.

On another note, to boost birth rates, the government plans to give families raising three children or more a 5-percent discount on city gas charges from next year.

Such large families will also pay less tax when they buy a car between 2013 and 2015.