By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter

TOEFL, TOEIC and other English test scores will not be used as major elements in the process of admitting students to universities under the admissions officer system.

This is part of guidelines announced Wednesday by the Korean Council for University Education (KCUE), a group of university presidents set up to oversee major school policies.

Lee Bae-yong, head of the council and also president of Ewha Womans University, said they will no longer count language certification test scores in the admission process, along with verbal English interviews and extracurricular awards from schools.

The steps are in line with the government's move to reduce private tutoring costs and reinvigorate the public school system.

To that extent, each university will give more weight to academic records from high schools and recommendations from teachers as well as leadership activities.

The set of comprehensive admission steps came as an effort to change the academic environment in elementary and secondary schools where many parents and students rely heavily on private education institutes.

To tackle possible irregularities ― as seen by some Koreans cheating their way into U.S. colleges ― the university presidents pledged to introduce a "Korean-style" admissions officer system

Each university's criteria will be reviewed by the council, with schools violating the guidelines being subject to penalties.

In addition, universities are not allowed to discriminate against applicants because of their high schools. Some universities used to favor graduates from elite schools such as foreign language and science high schools as well as those from overseas schools over graduates from ordinary public schools.

To make the admission process fairer, member universities of the council will be required to evaluate students using a larger group of admission officers and also in more screening steps.

The government has encouraged universities to select more students by admissions professionals who put more value on the creativity and talent of students over academic scores.

The Lee Myung-bak administration believes that this system will reduce soaring private education costs burdening many parents.

It has expanded government subsidies to universities hiring admissions officers to 35 billion won ($31 million) this year from 23.6 billion won in 2009 and 15.7 billion won in 2008.