Standardized High School Education Will Be Adjusted and Contributors Admission Is Likely to Be Allowed

Policy research institutes submitted their opinion to modify the whole education system, for example, by allowing universities to admit students who significantly contributed to the school and by increasing the choice of students and parents for schools through an overall modification of the standardized high school education system.

They also advised that the government should allow farmers who do not cultivate to own land with some sort of restriction and deregulate all the restrictions against the construction or enlargement of the factories in the Capital city area.

16 institutes including Korea Development Institute and Korea Rural Economic Institute, presented their final report, `Vision 2011` to the National Economy Council presided by the President on the 14th.

Recommendations in the report carried out by the order of the Ministry of Finance and Economy are likely to be implemented as real policies.

The report advised that monopolistic businesses must be divided into two or more companies and be separated from the affiliates. It also recommended that the restrictions on the bank`s share should be alleviated.

The report also proposed that the government should allow private universities to freely decide the number of admitted students and donor admissions, and encourage them to introduce a quota system for certain ages or for experienced employees.

In addition, the report emphasized that unnecessary restrictions must be abolished to increase productivity since the potential growth rate will go down to 1.7 percent in 2030, compared with 3.3-4.1 percent in 2010 and 8.4 percent in 1970s.

It also recommended improving the civil service examination that is the most dominant channel for recruiting government officials.

The dual financial supervisory system with Financial Supervisory Commission and Financial Supervisory Service is recommended to be unified and not to be influenced by political pressure or administrative interventions.

Meanwhile, Economy Minister Jin Nyum commented, "Donor admissions shall be decided by independent counsel of the universities. The government should entrust all rights to choose students to schools and concentrate on ensuring fairness and transparency in the process of the admission procedure."

Vice Prime Minister Jin also added that "Since the civil service examination to recruit government officials has displayed many problems, its subjects and procedures should be improved."

Joong-Hyun Park sanjuck@donga.com · Chan-Sun Hong hcs@donga.com