By Park Si-soo
Staff Reporter
A Korean medical student said that universities, especially state-run schools, need to employ rigorous measures to control students' performances and achievements to strengthen their competitiveness.
Park Chan-soon, a sophomore at the college of medicine of Seoul National University (SNU), who scored the highest in the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) held in 2005 with 498 points out of a possible 500, emphasized this in an interview with The Korea Times last week.
``Students with good achievements, of course, win a scholarship. Universities, however, do not have any measure to sanction students showing poor performances and achievements. That is one of the reasons why undergraduates in the nation study less compared with those in foreign countries,'' Park said.
``Foreign universities have strict guidelines regarding students' academic behavior and study criteria. If they fail to meet these, the school authorities can punish them and even kick them out of school. I think introducing these scholastic systems will encourage students to study harder and eventually boost the competitiveness of Korean universities including SNU.''
The medical student said inflexible administration procedures at the school hamper SNU from being a world-class university. He added that giving full autonomy in management and the selection of freshmen would help increase SNU's global competitiveness.
``SNU is backed by the government in all areas including financial supporting. Under the current system, therefore, it is hard for the school authorities to adopt competitiveness-boosting measures, such as performance-based salaries and promotion,'' he said. ``The government should allow schools to select students on their own, not under the government's influence.''
The 20-year old gave some tips for the takers of the CSAT, which is to be held nationwide on Nov. 16.
``Now, there is less than one month to go before the national test. At the moment, students should focus on reviewing what they have studied rather than studying something new with the desire of earning high scores,'' Park said. ``Taking a mock examination every single day within a limited time would be quite helpful for students to prepare for the test, enabling students to feel somewhat comfortable when they take the actual test.''
He underscored maintaining good health and having enough sleep before the test are critical to obtaining a good result in the national examination.