Universities fight ban on written exams

All universities will be banned from holding their own written examinations of mainly Korean, English and math to recruit freshmen starting next year under the revised enforcement decree of the related law.

However, the government decision immediately triggered a protest from the universities which demanded a wider autonomous right to recruit students. Under the previous ordinance of the High Education Law, only state-run universities were prohibited to give such written tests, but the revised one included private universities as the subject for the ban.

The government passed the revision of the enforcement decree in a Cabinet session presided over by President Kim Dae-Jung on Tuesday. The new ordinance will affect the 2002 academic semester, but the current essay test will be maintained. The Ministry of Education has regulated the written tests at private universities through administrative guidance, but took the legal measure as some of them had conducted tests in a form of written exam, an official said.

The ministry decided to take punitive measures against universities that hold such exams against the revised ordinance, such as reduction of financial support and suspending financing experiments and research as well as scholarships. In the meantime, university freshmen will be recruited through two formulas from next year -- recruitment on demand and on regular occasion -- instead of the current four. Successful applicants for the recruitment on demand will be banned from applying for recruitment on regular occasion.