The curricula of South Korea's army, navy and air force academies overlap to a striking degree, with 95% of their general education courses found to be similar, according to an analysis released on the 21st. The findings have fueled arguments that merging the three academies would be more efficient, since cadets already take largely the same classes.
Rep. Kim Byung-joo of the Democratic Party of Korea, the ruling party's committee liaison on the National Assembly's National Defense Committee, said his review of data from the Ministry of National Defense and the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses (KIDA) showed curriculum similarity with the other academies at 91.5% for the Korea Military Academy, 80.6% for the Korea Air Force Academy and 69.6% for the Korea Naval Academy.
Among general education courses, 118 of 124 across the three academies, or 95.4%, were similar. For required general education courses, all three services taught identical subjects with the exception of one course at the naval academy. Of 103 military science courses, 69, or 68%, were classified as similar. Among major courses, 34 of 41, or 82.9%, were found to be similar.
Kim said the separate system, under which each academy teaches similar courses on its own, wastes resources and can hurt cadets' learning conditions. The three academies deploy 2,688 administrative and support staff to train a total of 2,940 cadets.
Because budgets are split among the three academies, only 33.0% of the 315 professors teaching general subjects hold a master's degree, or about one in three, he said. That makes it harder to secure teaching expertise than at ordinary universities, where instructors hold doctorates. Satisfaction with the education is also low: a 2024 KIDA survey found that just 25.2% of cadets were satisfied with their education overall.
Kim proposed a unified academy as the solution. "If they are merged, scattered faculty resources would come together, the range of courses offered would widen and the quality of classes would improve," he said. "Instead of buying educational equipment with 1 billion won split among them, they could bring in 3 billion won worth of advanced facilities, creating a far better environment for cadets."
"Merging the academies is not simple restructuring but a reform of the right to education that guarantees our officer corps world-class learning conditions," he said. "The defense ministry must move past service parochialism and boldly push ahead with integration."