By Na Jeong-ju
A professors’ group urged Education Minister Lee Ju-ho, Tuesday, to disband a ministry panel spearheading the ongoing college restructuring drive, threatening to launch a campaign to oust the minister unless its demands are met.
The “revolt” reflects allegations among some universities that the government’s move to weed out “substandard” schools is based on unfair evaluation standards.
It also suggests an uphill battle for Lee to carry through college restructuring, the centerpiece of his educational reform.
The group, representing some 16,000 professors from 40 state-run and public universities, claims the ministry panel, headed by former Inha University President Hong Seung-yong, is a “supralegal” body.
“The committee, mainly composed of professors tied to private enterprises and those from private colleges, is not qualified to rate universities. Its assessment criteria are biased and unfair,” said the association’s Chairman Kim Hyung-kee, an economics professor at Kyungbook National University. “Lee should disband the panel because it is completely untrustworthy.”
Kim and other board members visited the education ministry in the afternoon to meet with Lee and senior education officials. They threatened to launch a campaign to “oust” him from the post if its demands are not accepted, officials said.
The professors’ group called on the ministry to drop plans to introduce a merit-based wage system for professors and to abolish the direct election system for presidents of state-run colleges. It also denounced the ministry for introducing competition-oriented programs for state-run schools, ignoring the unique roles they have played for the country’s education.
“We propose the creation of a development committee including state-run schools to map out long-term plans for the future of the country’s universities,” Kim said.
In late September, the ministry picked five “non-viable” state-run universities that will face rigorous restructuring and financial restrictions. The measure came a few weeks after it decided not to give state subsidies to 43 private colleges next year.
The blacklisted schools have claimed that the methods and standards the government adopted to rate schools were unfair, but the ministry has dismissed their allegations.