The purpose of this study is to closely examine the middle aged women’s motivations to join Academic
Credit Bank System and their participatory process of it, and to explore some improvement measures for
the system. For that purpose, I have conducted a research including participant observation and in-depth
interview with the learners for one semester at the institute of lifelong education affiliated with ‘A’
University in Seoul. I discovered some characteristics of the participatory process in Academic Credit Bank
System while conducting the research. They are as followings; 1) ‘To make my old dream come true’, 2)
‘Pain and happiness of learning again’, 3) ‘One class various responses’, 4) ‘Two different perspectives
between educators and learners’, 5) ‘To be an art major’. Based on this result, I have two suggestions
here. The first one resulted in this study is that what should be done before anything is to redirect the
public perception towards Academic Credit Bank System, which just sees the system as an easy way to
acquire an academic degree. For this to change, there ought to be a device to overcome the mistaken
perception of Academic Credit Bank System, that it is for obtaining a degree rather than gaining
self-realization and self-cultivation. Moreover, we must construct a proper system, offering the right
educational means and grounds to the learners such as a raise in the total number of credit units needed
for graduation, so that they have an enough time to get educated through classes, and finally become
successful experts in their fields.