By Yun Suh-young
Seoul National University (SNU) said Monday that it is in talks with three other Asian universities to set up a joint degree program.
At the 2011 Besetoha President Forum held at Tokyo University last Tuesday, the presidents of Seoul National University, Peking University, University of Tokyo and Hanoi University agreed to adopt a joint degree program among the four schools in the next few years.
The deans of the Office of International Affairs at the four universities will meet at SNU next March to discuss specific details.
The joint degree program will allow students to receive graduate degrees from both their alma mater and another partner university.
“The details will be disclosed in the near future as the joint degree program is usually promoted not on the school level but on a department basis,” said Park Sun-ju, exchange program manager at the Office of International Affairs at SNU.
SNU has sought the joint degree program since 2000 with the three universities and has already held exchanges at college and department levels with the Asian schools.
The joint degree program was initially discussed in 2009 when the presidents of South Korea, China and Japan agreed to expand the exchange programs between the three universities, mimicking the “Erasmus” program, an exchange program between colleges in the European Union.
SNU expects an agreement to get endorsement by October next year at the 2012 Besetoha conference which will be held at Beijing’s Peking University.
Along with the joint degree program, SNU also plans to expand student exchanges and conduct co-research between the four universities.