By Na Jeong-ju
The government has banned 13 colleges from accepting new overseas students for a year from September for providing them with poor services.
The colleges will be prohibited from applying for visas for new foreign students and be ordered to revamp their policies for such students based on advice from government-designated consultants, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology said Sunday.
The measure reflects concerns that some private colleges are admitting unqualified foreign applicants to increase enrollment and boost tuition revenue. Many of these foreign students have quit school to work after entering the country on study visas, and become illegal sojourners.
The affected schools include Daegu Arts University; Hanmin University in Nonsan, South Chungcheong Province; Seoul Women’s University; the University of Suwon; Hanshin University; and Hansei University in Gunpo, Gyeonggi Province.
“The colleges won’t be able to apply for visas for overseas students for one year from the second semester of next year,” a ministry official said.
The result is based on evaluations of some 350 universities nationwide in such categories as accommodation for international students, drop-out rates, the number of foreign faculty members and the quality of school programs for foreigners.
Some of the sanctioned schools violated or bypassed rules to increase enrollment of international students.
For instance, the University of Suwon halved tuition for foreign applicants without checking their qualifications properly. As a result, many of the newly-admitted overseas students there have dropped out, the ministry said.
The lax monitoring of foreign students at local schools has been a headache for educational policymakers. Most schools tend to hire private agencies in a specific country to evaluate applicants.
Some schools, including Hanyang University, have recently set up branches abroad to attract talented students and professors but that’s not yet common among Korean colleges.
The ministry also designated 30 schools as having “exemplary” international programs. They include Hanyang, Yonsei University, Korea University, Sogang University and Ewha Womans University.
The ministry will provide certificates to the schools so that they can attract more talented foreign students and professors.
The ministry has urged colleges to introduce more quality-oriented globalization programs, rather than just increasing the number of lectures conducted in English and accepting more foreign students.
Last year, the ministry set up an English-language website on Korean colleges (https://heik.academyinfo.go.kr/main.tw) to provide comprehensive information on Korean schools to foreign students.
The number of foreign students studying in Korea is expected to surpass 100,000 for the first time next year. As of the end of 2011, there were some 87,000 foreign students from some 160 countries.
The figure has grown rapidly in recent years as Korean television dramas, pop songs and movies have become more popular in many Asian and European countries. The ministry recently set the goal of attracting 200,000 international students by 2020.