By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter
The government is expanding subsidies for Korean universities to have more English-only lectures as part of a move to attract more foreign students.
The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology said it will allocate 1.6 billion won ($1.6 million) to 27 universities for them to develop English-only lectures and offer better Korean language classes. It marks a fourfold growth from 400 million won for eight universities last year.
Since 2005, the government has taken a series of measures to make university classes more appealing to foreign students. The number of foreign nationals studying in Korea increased to 49,270 last year, up from 32,557 in 2006, 22,526 in 2005 and 16,832 in 2004.
The selected institutes will get between 50 million won and 100 million won, under the agreement that they match the government’s funding. Kyung Hee and Sogang universities in Seoul will introduce textbooks for Korean language studies in Spanish and Arabic under the project.
``Each selected university will use the funds to hire professors who can conduct lectures in English and develop various programs to attract foreign students,'' said Park Seung-chul, a ministry official.