By Kim Rahn
Colleges and students are being thrown into confusion following the education authority’s order for schools to close their programs that offer one year study here and another three years at overseas schools.
Last Thursday, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology ordered universities operating the so-called “1+3 Overseas Study Programs” to shut them down and stop recruiting new students. The order was made after most of the colleges finished admiting new students.
Under the programs, students receive English and general education courses at the Korean schools for one year and continue their study at an overseas college from the next year as sophomores.
Those programs have been popular, as students can enter American schools without SAT scores and get the schools’ degrees. They don’t get the Korean schools’ degrees, as they are not registered as their students but as members of the foreign schools.
About 20 schools across the nation have operated or are operating the programs, including Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (HUFS), Chung-Ang, Sogang and Hanyang universities.
But the ministry recognized the programs illegal.
“According to the higher education law, students registered with domestic schools can obtain foreign schools’ diplomas through double degree programs. But the students are not registered with the domestic ones and the programs are irrelevant to domestic degrees, so the programs are illegal,” a ministry official said.
He said the Korean schools are virtually playing the role of overseas study agencies for the foreign schools.
“Some schools have their own education centers run the programs, and it is also illegal because such centers are not supposed to operate such programs.”
The Korean colleges make the students pay high tuitions, 20-30 million won per year, which match the foreign schools’ tuition, saying the students belong to the latter schools.
“But during the first year they don’t belong to the foreign colleges because the schools sometimes don’t allow admission for students with insufficient English skills for their second year. We’ve received petitions from students about such admission rejections and high tuition,” the official said.
But some colleges indicated they would reject the ministry’s order.
Chung-Ang University said in a notice on its website, “The ministry recognized all ‘1+3’ programs illegal and ordered shutdown. But the legal grounds it mentions lack details and we believe our programs are not against the law.”
It said its programs, which have been run without any problem since 2010, are proper international exchange programs initiated based on agreements with American colleges, asking the ministry to thoroughly review its programs.
The HUFS also posted a similar message on its website.
But the ministry said if the schools don’t comply with the order, it may slap administrative penalties on them.
Students who have applied or were planning to apply to such programs are at a loss. In case of Chung-Ang and HUFS, they announced the list of successful candidates for 2013’s programs on Nov. 28, but the ministry ordered the closure the next day.
The ministry hasn’t announced any follow-up measures for those successful candidates or students who are currently taking the programs. Fifteen schools this year have selected more than 1,200 students for the 2013 academic year.
A parent said on Chung-Ang’s website, “If the program violates the law that seriously to face shutdown as the ministry said, the ministry itself is responsible for having failed to supervise the programs and the schools. The sudden decision only victimized students.”