The government’s “employment first, education later” policy for students at vocational high schools is yielding results.

According to the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, about 41 percent of the students who graduated from specialized high schools in Seoul in February opted to get a job instead of going on to university.

The figure represents a big improvement from 19.2 percent in 2010 and 23.4 percent in 2011. Yet it is still far lower than 62 percent in 2001.

The office has found a similar change among students at normal high schools. This year, as much as 37 percent of the graduates chose to work instead of enrolling in a university. In 2008, only 10 percent did so.

These numbers suggest that parents and high school students have started to rethink the wisdom of going to university. In fact, recent years have witnessed a decline in the share of high school graduates enrolling in tertiary educational institutions. After peaking at 83.8 percent in 2008, the percentage dropped to 81.9 percent in 2009, 79 percent in 2010 and 72.5 percent in 2011.

Yet it is still high compared with about 40 percent in Europe, 50 percent in Japan and 60 to 70 percent in the United States.

While encouraging high school leavers to get a job, the government has pushed corporations to open their doors to them. Responding warmly to the policy, companies have sharply expanded recruitment of secondary school leavers.

To reinforce this trend, the government has come up with a new measure. The Ministry of Employment and Labor announced Thursday it would expand support for companies to set up “corporate universities.”

A corporate university refers to an educational entity set up by a company to provide employees or potential employees with job-specific and company-specific training and education.

These institutions allow the employer to foster workers with the skills required to carry out specific tasks. They also help lure and retain talented high school graduates with a strong desire to learn.

One example is the Heavy Industries Academy launched by Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering in January. The company hired more than 100 high school graduates as academy cadets. These cadets will undergo an intensive, 7-year program, starting from aptitude development to expert education. If they finish all the required courses, they will receive the same treatment as an employee with a university diploma.

The DSME academy is a model that other companies need to emulate. As the government intends to provide support, corporations will be able to adopt it more easily.