Expert Consensus on Designing a National Teacher Qualification Management System: A Delphi Study

This study used a two-round Delphi survey to derive the necessity of establishing and the specific design directions for a national teacher-qualification management system in Korea. The panel included 28 experts: 12 from colleges of education, 12 from university teacher-education faculties, and 4 researchers from national policy institutes. Consensus was assessed using the Content Validity Ratio (CVR). As the results, the study found broad agreement that a Teacher Education Program Committee (provisional name) should operate as a deliberative body, with a streamlined structure centered on an Operations Committee and certification-specific subcommittees. For a National Teacher Qualification Center (provisional name), respondents emphasized securing professional expertise and institutional independence, with core functions focused on developing qualification standards and ensuring system-level quality assurance. However, it was confirmed that a phased and complementary implementation strategy was needed due to low consensus on some issues, such as the transfer of non-examination certification to universities. Furthermore, in the process of consultations with the Ministry of Education following the Delphi survey, there were some differences between expert consensus and policy authorities’ preferences regarding the committee’s status and the scope of transferring qualification-examination functions. This gap suggests the need to balance expert agreement with policy feasibility and administrative capacity. By integrating the results of both consensus and policy dialogue, the study proposed a coherent direction for establishing a national teacher-qualification management system. The proposed model has academic and policy significance as it can resolve the longstanding fragmentation and inconsistency across teacher preparation, curriculum, and licensing, and contribute to establishing an institutional foundation for national quality assurance and responsiveness to future educational demands.