[KS] On the Korean university system

[Bernhard Seliger]

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Dear list members,

Currently I write a paper for an upcoming conference in Seoul with a
comparison of the German and Korean university system and I would like to
discuss my ideas with list members. The problem for me is that there seems
to be few hard data on some of the problems I see. I would be glad to
receive any additional information. My hypothesis is that in both systems
there is an important degree of 'ossification/ sclerotization' and
accordingly, there are growing dysfunctionalities.

On the Korean university system

On one hand the Korean university stands in the strong tradition of a
society, where an examination system (originally) based on merit was
central to the state. The examination system since 1969 for Korean
universities shadows the former system.

Also, Korea differently from many other countries has a population with a
higher-than-average willigness to pay privately for education. This might
partly be linked to the status of teachers/ professors/ educated people
generally, i.e. again culturally. Like in other countries the
expansion of education to the whole society was mainly due to the state
provision of schooling. But in the university sector and the private
learning institutes spending was simultaneously increasing and the
demand was relatively stable in times of a reduction of income, like in the
Asian crisis (maybe even increasing, concerning the English language - is
there any data on this?).

Also, the share of private institutions in higher education is considerable
and there are tuition fees, so competition of universities (trying to
attract students by offering a diversified programme, including high
quality teaching and research) should work well in this framework.

However, looking at the universities an ossification of the system seems to
have happened.

The ranking of universities is not the outcome of any measurable
competition process. Generally, it is desirable, if universities can build
up a reputation independently from individual scholars teaching
there (like in the Germanic countries). This enhances long-term investment
in this reputation (while in the system based on the individual scholar the
time-horizon is one life span at most).

However, in the Korean system there seems to be (unlike e.g. the
competitive American system, where also the reputation and the ranking of
universities is important) an invariable ranking of universities
based on historical (and maybe political?) facts and achievements but not
longer on changes in them (while the ranking of universities is clearly no
easy task, recently rankings like that of American business
schools by Business week or the German Spiegel ranking at least try to
include a variety of factors allowing for often drastic changes, like in
the case of Columbia Business School in New York).

A second problems seems to be the evasion of screening of students through
the generous allocation of high grades and the automatic promotion system,
where students rarely fail. However, this is only a
guess, since I have only anecdotical evidence on it.

The third problem I see in the role of 'academic clans', notably based on
old school and regional ties. However, there seems to be also a coalition
of those professors all coming into office in the time of
rapid expansion of the universities, preventing change and resisting
performance measurement. Also, at least in my profession (economics) there
seems to be a stronger-than-average mainstream orientation, even more than
in America and Europe, where concentration is already provoking protests
and reducing competition of ideas. So, my hypothesis is that academic clans
also restrict in Korea (but not only there) the competition of ideas.

Another problem is bureaucratization (concerning the whole university
system, regardless of private or public), however, with no reliance on the
rule of law (eg of university statutes, graduation rules etc.often are
changed ad hoc).

A politization of decisions about research and teaching state funding, e.g.
the introduction of new programmes (Area studies under KYS and BK 21 under
KDJ). While the government surely has the right to set priorities, the
short term horizon seems to lead to inefficiency of investment and the
priorities seem mainly to be 'political consumption goods'.

Yours sincerely,

Bernhard
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Dr. Bernhard Seliger
Graduate School of International Area Studies
Hankuk University of Foreign Studies
270, Imun-Dong
Dongdaemun-gu
130 791 Seoul
Republic of Korea
Tel. 00 82 2 964 8517
Fax. 00 82 2 965 4792
e-mail: Seliger at maincc.hufs.ac.kr