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gsxr750r
Joined: 29 Jan 2007
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 Posted: Sun Apr 08, 2007 9:21 pm Post subject: Korean gov't fight over university admissions rules heats up |
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https://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2007/04/09/200704090039.asp
President Noh wants to keep things the same. The GNP wants changes. But would the be positive changes?
I think many of us agree changes need to be made.
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President Roh Moo-hyun yesterday issued a stark warning to opponents of controversial government regulations on university admission, called the three-nots policy.
The president said the eradication of the trio of regulations could threaten the very foundation of the nation's education system.
"There has been a ceaseless movement to scrap the three-nots policy. Our failure to defend them could lead to a real crisis in our education," he said in a special speech aired yesterday by state-owned educational broadcaster EBS.
Calls to scrap the decades-old rules have been rekindled recently by top-notch universities and the conservative Grand National Party. They have slammed the government for pursuing equality at the expense of excellence and autonomy.
The regulations of the universities' admissions process bans universities from taking financial donations for admitting students, using academic differences among high schools as an admissions criterion, and administering their own tests, known as "bongosa."
The aim of the rules is to provide equal education opportunities for students and to normalize public education, education authorities say.
Roh said universities' rigorous admission tests will further fuel the private education craze. "The university tests will get more difficult, causing parents, unsatisfied by (public) education, to send their children to cram schools," he said. "Public education will totally collapse."
He also said the essay tests will cause unequal education opportunities for lower-income family students.
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Personally, I feel the last two should be scrapped, but the first one (obviously) should stay.
What do you think? |
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Yu_Bum_suk
Joined: 25 Dec 2004
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| Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2007 3:50 pm Post subject: |
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Quite interesting. Private sources of funding are the reality of post-secondary education, and if Korea bans them soon they won't have a uni in the top 500, much less the top 100.
As for admissions, anything that takes emphasis away from the multiple-choice CSAT has to be a good thing. I'd love to see 60% of admissions criterea based on a the last two years of a student's HS marks relative to the rest of those in his / her programme. |
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pkang0202
Joined: 09 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2007 6:44 pm Post subject: |
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| I'm with the GNP. |
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jvalmer
Joined: 06 Jun 2003
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| Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2007 4:18 am Post subject: |
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I think the current entrance system is okay. Problem is that there are too many universities and colleges here. Need to get rid of alot of them. I like the 1 University per 1 or 2 million people ratio. Korea has about 50 million, maybe some 25 to 50, research intensive 4-year Universities, offering a wide range of graduate degrees, is all Korea needs. The rest should be closed down or become 2-year colleges or technical schools. Not everyone should/can go to university.
Almost every parents thinks their children are smart and should go to a top university. If their kid's grades aren't good, it's the educations systems fault. Partially true, but it's also the child being just average. Parents should realize that not everyone can a doctor, and could make a good living being a plumber. |
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merkurix
Joined: 21 Dec 2006
Location: Not far from the deep end.
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| Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2007 4:40 am Post subject: |
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| jvalmer wrote: |
I think the current entrance system is okay. Problem is that there are too many universities and colleges here. Need to get rid of alot of them. I like the 1 University per 1 or 2 million people ratio. Korea has about 50 million, maybe some 25 to 50, research intensive 4-year Universities, offering a wide range of graduate degrees, is all Korea needs. The rest should be closed down or become 2-year colleges or technical schools. Not everyone should/can go to university.
Almost every parents thinks their children are smart and should go to a top university. If their kid's grades aren't good, it's the educations systems fault. Partially true, but it's also the child being just average. Parents should realize that not everyone can a doctor, and could make a good living being a plumber. |
So let me get this straight; if this was the formula for the U.S., then there would only be 150 universities? That's even less than the total number of universities are in California alone (a state of almost 34,000,000 people). By using this logic you are arguing that they should only get 17 universities.
Statistically, not everyone in Korea goes to college anyways. I forget the source, but I read somewhere that less than 8% of the Korean population goes to a university (and this includes the cheapy-middle-of-nowhere-universities).I will post that statistic once I find it. |
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jvalmer
Joined: 06 Jun 2003
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| Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2007 5:32 am Post subject: |
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Let me clarify. 25 or so universities, that have the full offerings of masters and PhD's. The other should be shut down or concentrate on 2-year diplomas or focus on undergraduate studies.
I think there are about 150-200 full-blown, offering PhD in every major field of studies, unversities in the US. The others are smaller universities that concentrate in certain areas like liberal arts or science and don't really offer graduate studies in a wide range of areas. |
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bobbyhanlon
Joined: 09 Nov 2003
Location: 서울
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| Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2007 6:41 am Post subject: |
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| i find it absolutely astonishing that anyone would advocate accepting donations in return for giving places. how on earth can that be justified by anyone? i'm sure 연대 or 고대 would love to beef up their endowments by doing that, but to publicly admit it and make it an officially accepted policy is f-ed up. |
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Young FRANKenstein
Joined: 02 Oct 2006
Location: Castle Frankenstein (that's FRONKensteen)
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| Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2007 6:48 am Post subject: Re: Korean gov't fight over university admissions rules heat |
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Damn, I just saw your nun sig and laughed myself to tears... christ, now my stomach hurts. |
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gsxr750r
Joined: 29 Jan 2007
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| Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2007 7:19 am Post subject: Re: Korean gov't fight over university admissions rules heat |
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| Young FRANKenstein wrote: |
Damn, I just saw your nun sig and laughed myself to tears... christ, now my stomach hurts. |
Thank my mother for that one. |
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Woland
Joined: 10 May 2006
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2007 8:31 am Post subject: |
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| bobbyhanlon wrote: |
| i find it absolutely astonishing that anyone would advocate accepting donations in return for giving places. how on earth can that be justified by anyone? i'm sure 연대 or 고대 would love to beef up their endowments by doing that, but to publicly admit it and make it an officially accepted policy is f-ed up. |
That there is a a correlation between donations and places in the west is well known. It comes in many forms, from legacy places for alumni who support the institution to relationships built with prominent (read, rich) public figures who can support the school. This is part of how universities get the money they need to fund their academic missions - the bigger, better facilities; the big name profs; and assorted other opportunities that are offered to students of all stripes entering the institution.
One key to this relationship in the west is that it is not a quid pro quo. People give, but it doesn't guarantee a place for their kids. The kids still have to meet at least minimal standards for admission. The university I went to had a famous case of an alum, a famous, well-off spy novelist, who had supported the institution generously for years, but who cut them off completely when his son, by all accounts a ne'er-do-well, wasn't accepted. A case where it did work out would be Ralph Lauren's children getting accepted to Duke after he was courted for donations by the university.
You may object that their places came at the exclusion of other, potentially more qualified students, but this suggests a simplistic view of what qualified is, the sort of problem that afflicts the Korean university admissions process. It's long and complicated to explain, but it may be that no one was really excluded, just places were shuffled. And Duke, and all the other universities that do this (as well as other such unsavory activities like giving athletic scholarships), benefit from the process, and all the students who end up going there benefit from it, as well. The relationship between Yale and the Bush family is a mutually beneficial one, and a generally beneficial one. And George Bush got in because he was at least minimally qualified; they weren't taking complete incompetents. (NB: I'm no fan of George Bush.)
The three No's are all inimical to quality higher education. They create a false sense of the state promoting equality, when in fact no such thing has happened. My impression is that parental socioeconomic status is still a strong correlate to university admission here. Where's the loss in supporting a reform that may get a handful of mediocre students into big name universities, but will help provide those universities with the resources to expand and over time, admit many more of the "academically qualified" than they would have been able to had they not gotten those big donations.
For more info, see my post of an editorial in JoongAng Daily arguing for the end of these policies in Troll Bait's thread on General:
http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/korea/viewtopic.php?p=1129612&highlight=#1129612
Last edited by Woland on Tue Apr 10, 2007 8:49 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Woland
Joined: 10 May 2006
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2007 8:36 am Post subject: |
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jaderedux
Joined: 10 Jan 2003
Location: Lurking outside Seoul
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| Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2007 1:23 pm Post subject: |
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The system in the west and how I see it is that it isn't perfect but there are alot of what we call Jr. Colleges that focus more on job skills. Computer repair, setting up networks, Accounting, secretarial and some of the major trades.
High school in the states is especially the last year can be a f.o. time. It is really easy to get into a state school. Private harder. Out of state private even more difficult. (mostly because of tuition costs).
Freshman year at university Mommy and Daddy aren't there to make you do anyting like homework or study. So frequently freshman year is like a sifter. Those who choose to study and do the work, they keep going and sometimes graduate. Those who don't fail either quit or try the Junior College route which often offers some basic classes that you can transfer over. Some kids just need a little maturing time. Some wait till they are older. There are more and more mature students. (people who decide later in life that the majoring in Russian History wasn't going to help them in Des Moines Iowa. So they go back and perhaps get a more useful education. I had to. Liberal Arts degrees make you qualified to pretty much say would you like "fries" with that. I went back on got computer science degree. Took about 3 years because I had to work too.
Some Universities offer distance learning and exams are proctored locally. There are universities that offer lectures over the internet and then classwork is sent and graded either snail mail or via the internet. Again, tests are held in location close like Jr. College and proctored by teachers.
It seems to be the opposite here. High School is hell. They are in school frequently till 10:00 p.m. It is so hard to get into University here. But once your in it is almost impossible NOT to graduate. Most of the students that apply for Masters and Ph.D.s graduate. It seems from what my students who are in University now and I have one former student at SNU that alot of students seem to think getting in to college was the point. Not the education. Now it is their time to f.o. Might be hard to get in but pretty damn easy to graduate in this country.
Jade |
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pkang0202
Joined: 09 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2007 3:55 pm Post subject: |
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| bobbyhanlon wrote: |
| i find it absolutely astonishing that anyone would advocate accepting donations in return for giving places. how on earth can that be justified by anyone? i'm sure 연대 or 고대 would love to beef up their endowments by doing that, but to publicly admit it and make it an officially accepted policy is f-ed up. |
Come on, things like that happen at US universities all the time. It's well known that the "rich" will donate millions of dollars to top tier Universities and their children get a golden pass into the school.
US Universities don't even have to publicly admit it because everyone knows it happens. There's a reason why you don't find the children of millionaires going to community college or an "average" university. |
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