By Yun Suh-young
The government made public Friday the names of five national universities that fared poorly in its evaluations. They will face sanctions should they fail to carry out stringent rationalization programs.
They are Kangwon, Chungbuk, Gangneung-Wonju, Kunsan National Universities, and Busan National University of Education. They were the bottom 15 percent of the 38 state-owned universities across the nation, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology said.
The schools are fiercely protesting the government’s assessment, demanding it withdraw what they call an “unreasonable” assessment.
The selection of the five universities came days after the recent naming of 43 poorly-managed private schools that will face disadvantages. The government cut state subsidies to the 43 for their lack of competitiveness in early September.
“The evaluation on state-run universities was conducted with an objective management index and the purpose is to send a signal that they need to change,” said Hong Seung-yong, the head of the panel on college restructuring.
The five state-run universities will have to establish their own autonomous restructuring plans and execute them for the next year in order to avoid being weeded out entirely.
The restructuring plan includes changes in the organizational structure such as the abolition of the direct election system of university presidents, mergers or abolitions of departments, reform of department curricula, and the specialization of schools.
If universities fail to carry out the restructuring by next year, the authorized number of student enrollments will be forcibly reduced. Other sanctions include budget cuts and restrictions on the recruitment of additional professors.
The selected universities and professors at state-run schools have complained that the evaluation was unfair and that the government was simply trying to “kill” the selected universities all together.
Members of the Public University Professors’ Association held an emergency press conference Friday near the Central Government Complex where the education ministry is located and called for the withdrawal of the selection.
Some professors went inside the ministry building and protested in front of Hong, holding up placards saying “Get rid of evaluation indexes that ignore the uniqueness of schools,” and “Scrap plans that kill a school’s autonomy.”
The professors’ association said in a statement, “The ministry’s order to scrap the direct election system of university presidents is unconstitutional.”
They complained that “the evaluation index is discriminatory towards universities in small regional cities.”
The ministry also selected 12 private universities that will be subject to intensive due diligence. After the ministry takes a close look into the management and finances of the schools, it will order the shutdown of non-viable institutes.