MOEHRD Crafts Education Reform Plan

Aiming to ease the heavy household spending on child education, the government is mulling over changing the evaluation standards of art and physical training subjects from the existing method of giving scores to description of individual capabilities.

It is also considering amending the related law to allow cash-strapped colleges having hard times recruiting students to close their doors.

The Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development reported its comprehensive reform plan to President Roh at a meeting held in Chong Wae Dae on April 9.

▽Ease Household Burden

MOEHRD has decided to change the way middle and high schools evaluate their students for art, music and physical training courses. The new standard will be based on description of individual capabilities or a pass-or-fail evaluation instead of ranking student performances.

The ministry expects that the adoption of new standards will curb spending on private lessons aimed at high scores.

Art and physical training teachers, however, point to that the ministry is putting art and sports subjects aside, worrying they will further lose ground. The private tutoring market will also likely be hit hard by the decision.

Once the evaluation standard is switched to description, colleges are also expected to put little significance on those subjects when selecting students, even abolishing the subjects from entrance tests in some cases.

MOEHRD also plans to introduce the so-called `educare` system by combining childcare and education so as to provide educare courses during vacation for little children attending primary schools.

▽Restructuring of Cash-strapped Colleges

Cash-strapped colleges hit by the decline in the number of high school graduates will be able to seek a merger and acquisition deal as a survival strategy. The ministry will further amend the law to set up a liquidation process of a college in terms of disposal of assets, school foundation`s liabilities and compensations to teachers.

▽Fostering Local Collages

Given that the existing `BK (Brain Korea) 21` project is mostly centering on colleges in Seoul metropolitan area, the ministry plans to launch `Local BK 21` project and increase the budget set for local colleges from up to 300 billion won to 1 trillion won.

The local BK21 project will put focus on promoting research and development activities, and partnerships with businesses and research institutes by encouraging colleges to form consortiums with key industries in the region.

▽Teachers and Parents to Play More Assertive Role

The ministry is considering encouraging primary, middle and high schools to launch teachers` and parents` organizations so that they can participate in improving the education environment for their children. It will also seek to give more autonomy to local education authorities.

The decision-making process at colleges, which are currently centering on the president, will be open to executive members and faculties. To prevent school foundations from seeking illegal interests, it will have them audited by private audit firms. It will also form an arbitration committee to resolve any conflict within schools.

MOEHRD is further considering restrict government-level compensations for teachers involved in job-related incidents, and instead introduce an insurance program.

▽Challenges Ahead

Some of the ministry`s plans such as forming teachers` organizations are likely to spark controversy. Some others require a long-term approach with the absence of budget and action plans.

The plan to set up an arbitration committee was, in fact, introduced earlier in 1995, but soon scrapped facing opposition from the Ministry of Justice for its legal status.

In-Chul Lee inchul@donga.com