Bahk Eun-ji has been with The Korea Times since 2012, building a career across multiple desks. She began at the Business Desk, where she conducted in-depth interviews with key figures in Korea's corporate world. Later, she moved to the Politics & City Desk, focusing on education policy and social affairs. She later served as team leader of the digital content team, leading curation efforts on the newspaper’s homepage and reshaping print stories for social media audiences to enhance digital reach. Now back on the Politics Desk, she covers the National Assembly and the Ministry of National Defense, with a renewed focus on political developments.
Gov't to isolate Chinese students from communities
Education Minister Yoo Eun-hae, left, and Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon, attend an emergency meeting to establish a series of measures for managing Chinese students set to return for spring semester next week, at Seoul City Hall, Friday. /Yonhap
By Bahk Eun-ji
By Bahk Eun-ji
The government unveiled measures Friday to isolate Chinese students from local communities when they return from the mainland for the spring semester to prevent them possibly spreading the coronavirus on and off campus.
The students have been advised to quarantine themselves for 14 days after their arrival.
The Ministry of Education (MOE) said it will closely cooperate with the Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) and university officials to monitor Chinese students in the capital city.
“The series of measures comes amid growing fears of the possible spread of the contagious virus on university campuses here as the most number of Chinese students are expected to enter Korea from next week,” said Kim Gyu-tae, a deputy director general in the higher education policy division at the MOE, during a press briefing at the Government Complex in Seoul.
Among measures, the SMG will provide shuttle bus services from the airport to schools for the Chinese students ― who are returning from the winter vacation on mainland China ― to prevent them possibly transmitting the COVID-19 virus to others.
For universities that do not have enough dormitory space to quarantine students, the city government and district offices will provide temporary accommodation. The measure comes as university officials complained of difficulty in managing the students because of a space shortage.
The SMG has designated five local facilities for the temporary accommodation, including the Seoul Human Resources Development Center in Seocho-dong.
Students who have their own places near campuses will have to download a mobile application to report their health status during the two-week self-quarantine period. The education ministry will share the information with the city government to check if the students are following the rules.
Staff members and SMG officials will carry out telephone monitoring twice a day to check the students' health and whereabouts.
The education ministry suggested that Chinese students who are yet to come to Korea take leave for the first semester and pushed universities to prepare facilities to quarantine them after they enter Korea.
According to the Korean Education Statistics Service, there were 69,287 Chinese nationals studying in Korea as of April 2019 ― 43.3 percent of the 160,165 international students here. Among the Chinese students, 38,330 are enrolled in 68 universities in Seoul, the data showed.