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[garykasparov]

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2008/03/117_21054.html

President Lee Calls English Immersion Education �Impossible�

By Bae Ji-sook
Staff Reporter

President Lee Myung-bak turned negative toward English immersion education programs his transition team previously strongly advocated.

``English immersion education is something that we should not carry out and we cannot,'' he said during a briefing by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, Thursday.

Lee stated that his vision for English was wrongfully criticized. ``What I meant was that public English education should be able to fill the gap between those who have been abroad and received expensive classes and those who haven't. English is needed to be competitive but I do not want people to run to cram schools to catch up.''

In an approach to fill the gaps, the government will take a hands-on approach to setting English public education straight. Detailed plans of a government-conducted English evaluation test will be available by September.

A new English-only radio station will be established while the current EBS English channel will continue being available.

Sixteen schools in agricultural and fishing villages will be able to take their English classes in English online.

In other educational issues, the ministry said it will give 4 million won scholarships to 74,000 university students from the nation's lowest income bracket from 2012. But it did not specify how funds to finance the program would be raised.

Those from the second-lowest income bracket will also be provided with interest-free students loans and anyone will be able to get a regular student loan.

The ministry's ``action plan'' for education includes establishing 100 private high schools, designating 50 vocational schools as ``Meister high schools'' by 2012, providing online English lectures to rural areas while conducting government-driven English tests and giving full autonomy to universities in student selection.

The scholarship program, expected to relieve 1.64 million parents of a 151 trillion won burden, is a greatly anticipated project.

However, the lack of means and methods to finance such projects puts the feasibility of the ministry's generous educational subsidy programs into question.

The full scholarship will be available to those whose families receive full government subsidies. Those from the third to fifth-lowest income brackets will get a discount of 2 percent on loan interest.

The ministry has also set out to increase its investment in research and development projects from 10 trillion won to 16 trillion won in 2012. About 625 billion won in subsidies will flow into universities with good research records, with 78 billion won earmarked for the development of genetic treatment and brain research.

It set aside 300 billion won to finance projects to develop ``science prodigies,'' who will be sent to specialized schools and then be designated as a President's science scholarship student.

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[PRagic]

Way to go I.M.B. Just another excuse for more government.

[KYC]

It's not impossible; perhaps unrealistic at the moment but in the long run, it'll be possible. English education would also improve.

But whateva...I just hope this means my teachers class will be canceled. I haven't even started it yet. I'm really dreading it.

[Saxiif]

Nothing will change until the public schools ditch grammar translation pedagogy.

[bassexpander]

Backpeddling in the face of extreme opposition?

Wonder if the canal will be next?

[indytrucks]

[spliff]

Hope not, I was looking forward to sailing down it.

[anyangoldboy]

[quote="PRagic"]Way to go I.M.B. Just another excuse for more government.[/quote]

Just to let you know it's L.M.B.

[jay-shi]