By Park Si-soo
Staff Reporter
Two representative engineering-specialized universities in Korea will be merged in the near future.
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) is likely to merge with Information and Communications University (ICU) as early as August next year.
The board members of ICU had a meeting with officials of the Ministry of Information and Communications at Lotte Hotel in downtown Seoul on Wednesday.
Participants at the meeting reached an agreement to merge the two universities by mid next year.
ICU board members decided to establish an interim organization pushing forward the unification procedures by early next year, and then map out detailed procedures for the project.
They also decided to review the agreement should it be found any private company appeared to financially support the ICU.
Huh Un-na, president of ICU, quit her position on the day of the board members' decision to consolidate the two universities.
``As of now, ICU decided to follow the decision of the board members,'' an ICU official said. ``So far, the president Huh has sought to make ICU a school financially independent from the government. The school authorities have also looked for several companies, which desire to financially support the school. But the government pushed ahead with the scheme for consolidation.''
The ministry said the decision is in line with the prior agreement between ICU and the National Assembly.
``In 2004, the Board of Audit and Inspection pointed out that current governmental support of ICU is improper given that ICU was established under the private school law, not the special law enabling the government to financially support a specific university,'' an official of the ministry said. ``The National Assembly earmarked 9.5 billion won in 2006 for the school but it cut the budget for 2007 to 7.5 billion on the condition of negotiating the consolidation by 2007. But ICU did not follow the suggestion.''
Detailed plans of the merger will be set after a new acting president for ICU is appointed.