By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter
The enrollment quota for law schools has been fixed at 1,500, the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development announced Wednesday. The schools will open in 2009, and the quota will be gradually increased to 2,000 by 2013.
``It takes time to set up a social environment to foster lawyers in a new system. We need to increase the number of lawyers, step by step, in order to meet the average level of OECD countries by 2020,’’ Kim Shin-il, deputy prime minister and education minister, said during a meeting with lawmakers.
As universities and civil groups have claimed the quota should be more than 3,000, the ministry is expected to meet strong resistance.
``I was dumbstruck by the news. I strongly disagree with the ministry’s plan to make the number of lawyers per person equivalent to the OECD average by 2020. Moreover, the decision is not in line with the purpose of the law schools,’’ said Sohn Byung-doo, head of the Korean Council for President of Private Universities. ``We will take proper action against the plan by calling a meeting of university presidents soon.’’
A day earlier, the council announced a demand that the fixed number of students for law schools should be more than 3,200 at the National Assembly. Lawyers' groups, however, welcomed the ministry’s decision. The bar association had claimed the quota should be fixed at 1,200.
The admission quota will be confirmed with the National Assembly by the end of the month. Following it, universities, which applied for law school approval, will go through the ministry’s evaluation until next January.
Successful universities and the allotted quota for each university will be announced at the beginning of next year. Currently, a total of 47 universities are seeking approval for law schools and are not allowed to enroll more than 150 students. In this situation, more than half of the applicant universities are expected not to be approved.