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.
College students calling for tuition refund
By Bahk Eun-ji
University students are calling on the government to pressure universities to refund part of their tuition for the spring semester after the schools delayed on-campus classes until March 22 amid the continued coronavirus outbreak, according to the student councils union, Monday.
A professor gives an online lecture in this file photo. Korea Times file
By Bahk Eun-ji
The Association of Student Councils Network, the union of the nation's 27 university student councils, said it had met officials from the Ministry of Education and asked for a refund of part of student's tuition because of the delay in opening as compensation for the period that online lectures have replaced classes. The union said that the colleges should refund the tuition for this spring semester if they are not offering classroom lectures until March 22, instead of March 2.
“We demanded that tuition be refunded and encouraged each school to guarantee student participation in their coronavirus response taskforces,” the union said after the meeting with the education ministry.
A petition for tuition compensation on Cheong Wa Dae's website has garnered more than 67,700 signatures since it was posted March 2. A person who claimed to have posted the petition, said an adjustment or refund of tuition for this spring semester due to the delay was a matter for all college students across the country.
Many students, especially those who are studying music or painting have also called for a tuition refund as practicals and performances cannot be replaced by online lectures.
A student studying classical music at Gachon University said online lectures were meaningless for her because she needed face-to-face lessons from her professor through class-room lectures.
“There are no such online lectures for music students like me. I pay more than 5 million ($4,150) won for a semester, and if I can't get lessons from my professor in the class room, I want my tuition back at least for the period of the delay,” she wrote on the university's community page.
Some students showed their concerns over the quality of the online and makeup classes compared to face-to-face lectures.
“An online lecture is nothing but teaching myself instead of having teachers guide me to learn in the right direction. Besides, communication between professors and students is important during class. I'm concerned over the quality of the online lectures,” wrote a student anonymously on Chung Ang University's online community.
However, the education ministry said refunds for the spring semester would be difficult as most of the universities comply with the current credit system. The current education laws stipulate that a minimum of 15 hours per semester must be taught even if universities postpone the start of classes and reduce their number.
In response to the concerns over the quality of online lectures, an official at the education ministry said they will check on the preparation of such classes.