By Park Si-soo
Staff Reporter
Presidents of universities across the nation called for the government to drastically raise the quota of students for U.S.-style law schools at an emergency meeting Thursday. They want the total number of students for law schools to be introduced next year to rise to 3,200 from 2,000.
However, they failed to produce a joint action plan on the issue. Instead, they claimed the controversial issue should be handled by the upcoming administration.
``The total number of students should be more than 3,200. We ask the government to increase the number,'' said Sohn Byung-doo, president of Sogang University.
He said it was hard for them to take collective action against the government since each university has different circumstances. ``Thus, we plan to deliver our message made during the meeting to the incoming government,'' he said.
Their call came one day after Korea University threatened it would withdraw its bid to run a law school due to the smaller-than-expected student quota.
The Ministry of Education and Human Resources has held fast to its initial attitude of resolving the issue under the incumbent government, saying this conflict would serve as a huge burden on the incoming government.
A total of 21 school heads belonging to the Korea Association of Private University gathered Thursday at a restaurant in Gangnam District to look for a breakthrough in the already ``troubled'' law school program scheduled to launch from March next year.
Those who won a license for a graduate school as well as those who failed in their bids participated in the emergency meeting.
Noting that the presidential Transition team has never expressed its opinion on the matter, Sohn said, ``We expect the transition team to take a clear position on the issue. And the Law Education Commission, which assessed 41 candidates nationwide, should be reorganized.''
They said the government should allow every candidate with sufficient capabilities to nurture would-be lawyers to run the three-year graduate school without limitation in numbers.
Meanwhile, members of the Law Education Commission plans to have an emergency meeting Friday to discuss the announcement of its inspection results.
A commission official said ``we will discuss various controversial issues including countermeasure against a string of lawsuits filed by unselected universities. But the centerpiece of the talk would be the disclosure of the inspection result.''