• Journal of the Korean Society of Physical Medicine
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.151-164
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• 2010

Purpose : The purpose of this study was to investigate curriculums of physical therapy department in order to provide the basic data for developing educational standard. Methods : We identified the curriculums of physical therapy department in the world from January to may 2010 by internet, e-mail, fax and telephone. We compared the credits, education semesters, the names of departments, the numbers of departments for physical therapy education in all countries of the world and suggested some alternative for improvement. Results : The mean credits of 25 senior colleges were 140 and the mean credits of 22 Junior colleges were 136.6 in south Korea. The mean educational semesters and the mean credits were 9 semesters, 175.8credits of 1,363 universities in 73countries in the world. Of the 1,289 universities in the world, South Korea was ranked the fifth in the number of existing physical therapy education institutions with the number of 72. The name of department were comprised of physical therapy(1,289, 94.6%) and compound name(75, 5.4%) Conclusion : We suggest that the KAPT gradually rearranges senior college(4years), 170 creditS and consider time of community services and forms commission on accreditation in physical therapy education for developing educational standard. Also, we suggest to change the name of department into compound name because the student can have a chance to studies various subjects and get a chance to more occupations. We hope that the results of study can be helpful in order to rearrange the curriculum and the KAPT encourages the universities about following the educational standard.