10월 11일 자료입니다.
1. University reform.
2. Gloomy Korea.
University Reform
-Enhancement of Educational Competitiveness is Urgent -
The Education Ministry's latest university restructuring plan calls for shifting from quantitative expansion to qualitative advancement of the highest institutions of learning. It was a bombshell announcement with the potential to shake the nation's educational community from its foundation, but the bomb has to be detonated sooner than later. We welcome the government has finally, albeit belatedly, decided to tackle this urgent national agenda. The question is how strongly and persistently it can push for the reform program.
Currently, there are 411 universities and colleges in Korea, almost trebling the 140 in 1970. The rate of students going on to colleges has reached 81 percent compared with the United States' 63 percent and Japan's 49 percent. The number of students per professor, however, is 31, more than double that of high schools. The knowledge and skills of college graduates meets only 25 percent of the level required at their companies. It's no small surprise Korea's educational competitiveness was the 59th out of 60 countries surveyed by the Institute of International Management Development.
So the ministry is right in cutting the fresh enrollment quota by 95,000 in five years, while weeding out marginal schools through abolition and merger. It will provide subsidies for voluntary mergers among schools, while reducing freshmen quotas for colleges that fail to secure a proper number of teachers. The ministry will also require the schools reveal key information, including financial sheets, student-per-professor figures and the employment rate of graduates, to help outsiders form objective comparisons. All these measures reflect survival of the fittest through free competition.
It will be easier for the government to streamline national or public universities through these financial and administrative incentives. But the success of the program depends on the response of private schools, which account for 83 percent of total universities and almost entirely depend on tuitions for their financing. Founders of some provincial colleges regard their schools as no more than diploma mills for money. Still the government cannot force their shut down, as Korea is not a socialist country like China, which merged 733 colleges into 288 over a decade.
The government does not have many weapons besides financial incentives and administrative discipline. But there will be cases no amount of carrots and sticks would fix, as the merger or closure of a university is a very complicated problem involving the interests of not only founders and students but also faculty and local societies. In this vein, the government is advised to introduce an independent agency to objectively and precisely evaluate schools as a means of restructuring through market principles.
Resource-poor Korea has mainly thrived on high educational zeal, and human resources development will be the only means of ensuring future prosperity, too. The government should fulfill its foremost duty of creating an environment for quality education by carrying out the program without a hitch.
09-01-2004 19:00
Gloomy Korea
Social Safety Net Urgent for Reducing Suicides
The nation's suicide rate is soaring at an alarming pace. Last year, the number of suicides hit a record high of 11,000, with 24 in every 100,000 people taking their own lives. In 2002, Korea was ranked fourth among 30 OECD countries with 18.7 suicides per 100,000 people, following Hungary (23.2), Japan (19.1) and Finland (18.8). If the other countries' figures have remained relatively unchanged over the period, this country now might well top the list. Something should be done, very urgently, lest Korea set a dishonorable world record.
More serious than this figure itself is the type of people who are killing themselves. Suicide was the top cause of death among people in their 20s and 30s. About half of those who put an end to their own lives were aged between 20 and 50. This is especially problematic for the nation's future as the people who should being working hardest in the prime of their lives are now facing the worst despair. Failure to keep up with rapid social changes and increasing job insecurity were behind this shaking of the pillars of society.
Apparently, the economic slump has played a major role. Korea's crude mortality rate for suicide, which shot to 19.9 during the currency crisis of 1998 and then fell back for a while, has been steeply rising since 2001. Statistics show the number of suicides is linked with the rate of unemployment. But economic difficulties do not necessarily lead to more suicides, as shown by the higher suicide rates in advanced countries than in poor, underdeveloped nations. Some reports have noted that in times of war and famine, the suicide rate drops, which also seems to be the case in this country, too.
Local experts in the field point to an increasing trend to attach less importance to life among Koreans, ranging from disgraced CEOs of bankrupt firms to stressed high school students. The social atmosphere is a big factor, too. Unending political strife, economic recession, permanent security threats and various social irregularities deprive Koreans of much hope in their lives. More than 40 percent of young Koreans would leave the country if given the chance. The only time the suicide rate fell recently was during the 2002 World Cup finals, in which Korea unexpectedly reached the quarterfinals.
Suicide may the end pain for individuals but it results in permanent mental damage for people around them. Still, the matter should not be left to individuals but tackled on the state level. The government does not appear to understand the seriousness of this issue, as there is no systematic and professional system for preventing suicides. It allocates only 200 million won of its annual budget to suicide prevention centers, compared with 10 billion won in the United States. The government should sharply increase related budgets and train more counselors to take better care of the socially isolated. Most of all, the governing elite and political leaders ought to make this society a more livable one.