By Lee Hyo-sik
The government has launched a campaign to restructure universities by weeding out financially-week private schools and merging state-run ones, a move seen as a precondition for reducing tuition costs.
Its push comes amid growing calls from students, parents, civic groups and lawmakers of both ruling and opposition parties for university tuition fees to be halved from the current level.
The government has asked universities to reduce the costs of college education with their own financial resources. But universities have dismissed government requests, arguing that they need taxpayers’ money to do so.
Against such a backdrop, the government has decided to put pressure on schools by initiating the restructuring of the nation’s highest learning institutions.
The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology said Tuesday that it will set up a ``University Restructuring Reform Committee’’ next month.
The ministry said the committee, made up of its officials and private experts, will draw up a blueprint on how to overhaul troubled universities in the latter half of the year.
“The committee will receive self-made restructuring plans from each school and evaluate them. It will then prepare final reform plans and recommend them to the ministry,” a ministry official said.
Currently, the Board of Audit and Inspection is looking into the country’s two-year colleges and four-year universities to check how they are managed.
Additionally, the ruling Grand National Party (GNP) and Cheong Wa Dae agreed Tuesday to join hands to cut tuition fees and restructure poorly-run universities
They said they will mobilize all resources to legislate new laws and revise existing ones as quickly as possible to speed up the restructuring of universities.
During a Cabinet Meeting held at Cheong Wa Dae, Tuesday, President Lee Myung-bak also instructed ministers to carefully push for the restructuring of universities in order to not have students suffer disadvantages as a result.
``During the meeting, President Lee asked Cabinet members to closely cooperate with the GNP in restructuring universities in a constructive manner,’’ presidential spokesman Park Jeong-ha said.
Under the laws, if universities are forced to close their doors due to poor financial standing or other reasons, students have to transfer to other schools. If schools undergo restructuring, it becomes harder for students to receive loans from banks and state-run financial firms.