College Restructuring is Urgent Business

As the number of high school students who will graduate early next year declines, many colleges are expected to have trouble filling their available spots for freshmen. Against this backdrop, a college foundation in Busan has decided to shut down its 2-year junior college and incorporate its faculty into its 4-year university. The decision is expected to ignite restructuring moves by other colleges.

However, though the nation`s colleges acknowledge the need for merger and abolition among colleges, they do not take steps aggressively, faced with opposition from inside.

Ñ “Decision to close amid gloomy prospect = Sungsim school foundation made an announcement Oct. 17 on its plan to incorporate Sungsim College of Foreign Languages (junior college), which is located in Bansong-dong, Haeundae-gu, Busan, into Younsang University (4 year university) in Ungsang-eup, Yangsan-si, South Gyeongsang province.

According to this plan, Sungsim College of Foreign Languages will not recruit freshmen for school year 2003, and instead, the school foundation will increase the number of freshmen at Youngsan Univ. by 500.

The current freshmen at Sungshim College of Foreign Languages will finish the 2-year college course as scheduled, while Youngsang Univ. is expected to accept its total 115 faculty members.

The school foundation said, "We do not have trouble filling the available spots right now. However, the case will be different in years to come as the number of high school students drops. We decided that it would be better to shut down the junior college and improve the competitiveness of our 4-year university."

Ñ War to recruit freshmen = For school year 2002, in a total of 383,533 available spots at 4-year universities across the nation, 27,182 spots (7%) were not filled. This figure is higher than double the number in school year 2001 (12,897) and the highest on record.

Among 16 mega cities and provinces, South Cheolla province has the highest rate of unfilled spots. It failed to fill 3,050 spots (21.7%) in the total 14,077 spots. In this region, available spots at universities outnumber high school graduates.

In particular, colleges in the country are suffering form financial difficulties as 20-30 percent of the students withdraw from school temporarily. Some colleges find less than 50 percent of students come back to school at the start of a new term.

Ñ Little progress in school restructuring = In 1997 when the nation was hit by a financial crisis, some colleges tried to merge for restructuring. However, most of such attempts were faced with opposition by faculty members and because of interest conflict among departments and between colleges, actually the number of mergers is very low.

The Ministry of Education and Human Resource Development said, "Though restructuring at colleges is very urgent, the real merger is limited to only a few cases. It is because reduction of employers is very difficult. However, if a college is not to raise its competitiveness by focusing on a special sector, it cannot survive."

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