In the early years following the liberation of Korea (15 August 1945) from Japanese rule, the first science policy of South Korean government was formulated in the context of postcolonial nation-building. This paper argues that Korean science policy at the outset was focused mainly on the design of elite scientists, tracing three policy-making processes: agenda-setting initiated by several scientists to promote science and technology, introducing a governmental science agency, and integrating the scientists’ design to the agency’s policy. A group of elite scientists led by Taikyu Ree (1902-92), the dean of Science and Engineering School at Seoul University, submitted two proposals to the National Committee on Educational Planning of the interim government, the United Sates Army Military Government in Korea. These scientists’ proposals, one aiming to promote science education and the other to strengthen scientific research, were drawn both from their colonial experiences and the postcolonial context to be discussed. Instead of adapting these proposals, the US military government introduced vocational training policy for lower-level workers and established a bureau of vocational education in the Ministry of Education. Political changes, however, from the closing of US military government to the beginning of the South Korean government in 1948, opened a new window for scientists to contribute to the needs of the Korean government’s policy. Kyunam Choi (1898-1992), a physicist educated in America, played a key role in mediating between the two groups as the bureau’s director, changing the focus of the bureau’s policy from the training of in-house workers to science education. As a result of these processes of policy-making, an agenda for science education, one of the two proposed by Taikyu Ree, was able to be embodied in Korea’s first science policy implemented by Kyunam Choi.