Korean-Filipino graduate finds engineering future through Korea Polytechnics program

Park Jong-bae, fourth from left, poses with other students at the vocational training program for job seekers with multicultural backgrounds in front of the Korea Polytechnics campus in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, in this 2025 photo. Courtesy of Korea Polytechnics

Park Jong-bae was 14 when he arrived in Korea from the Philippines — the country where he was born to a Korean father and a Filipino mother. Despite his Korean heritage, he struggled with a new language, a new culture and a school system that moved faster than he could follow. After middle school, he entered a general high school but quickly fell behind because of his limited Korean language skills and eventually left the conventional academic track.

His turning point came at Korea Polytechnics Dasom High School, an alternative school for students from multicultural background. There, Park received tailored Korean-language support and hands-on technical classes that opened his eyes to the world of engineering.

Yet after graduating, Park struggled to find a stable career, moving from one short-term job to another. Hoping to find a professional path aligned with his interests, he enrolled in a vocational training program run by Korea Polytechnics, a public college system under the Ministry of Employment and Labor, for job seekers with multicultural backgrounds like him, specializing in electrical 3D modeling.

After over four months and 600 hours of intensive training, Park developed 3D-based electrical design skills that helped him land a job at Sejin Electric Engineering Institute, an engineering company based in Seoul.

“The Korean and electrical skills I acquired through this program became a powerful asset that I can call my own,” Park, now 28, said.

Korea Polytechnics has run the program since 2024. Target groups include refugees, people from multicultural families, North Korean defectors and other long-term foreign residents.

The program is run as an intensive 600-hour package that combines basic Korean language and culture education with hands-on, worksite-oriented technical training. The school plans to train 200 people this year, after educating 112 participants in 2024 and 206 in 2025, and has further improved the quality of instruction in 2026 by making artificial intelligence-related coursework and industrial safety subjects compulsory.

“With a clear goal, I believe anyone can be competitive if they build both technical skills and language ability,” Park added.