“Lend Us 100 Billion Won to Develop Science and Technology”

“Please approve investment in the school worth 100 billion won. The clock is ticking for investment in school to strengthen its competitiveness.”

President of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) Suh Nam-pyo held a press conference on March 26 where he said, “It will help us become the world’s number one science and technology university, greatly helping Korea transform itself into a knowledge-based industrial country,” and demanded the board of directors in KAIST and related ministries, including the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Planning and Budget, to approve of the investment loans.

President Suh also said that recognizing the social responsibility as a beneficiary of the government support, he would force students at KAIST with a low GPA to pay higher tuition fees than their counterparts in other universities.

This is the first time a government-sponsored research institute has attempted to borrow funds from commercial banks for its own business. Although KAIST received a credit standing from a financial institution involved in the consultation over the loans as high as Samsung’s, it faces harsh opposition from four government figures out of the 15 directors at a board of directors meeting held on February 28.

President Suh remarked, “For our academics and research to maintain global competitiveness, the size of our faculty and number of students must reach a certain point,” adding, “The loans received will be spent on the school’s five-year development plan where the number of faculty and students will increase from 421 to 700, and 700 to 1,000, respectively.”

He also commented, “We are currently in contact with world-class companies including Johnson & Johnson, Merck & Co., Inc., GSK, IBM, Google and Microsoft to attract their R&D, biotechnology (BT), and information technology (IT) research centers here, arguing, “We need quality research facilities to attract them.” In the same aspect, it was newly disclosed that KAIST decided to sign an MOU with Oracle, a world-class software company, to establish a research center early next year.

President Suh also revealed a plan on how to raise the quality of students based on KAIST’s efforts that is as ambitious as its demand for lending approval.

He said, “At the end of the day, the goal of education is to imbue students with capability and confidence to resolve unseen challenges on their own,” adding, “Starting next semester, freshmen will, for the first time in Korea, be subject to a course on ‘academic designing,’ enabling them to solve unseen and unheard-of problems within a certain period.”

In addition, “Just like now, students with a GPA (out of the full score of 4.3) of 3.0 and higher will have their tuition fees waived. But those with GPAs of 2.0 and lower will be subjected to pay 15 million won, while those in the range of 2.0 and 3.0 will pay a certain amount in between. This will be applied to freshmen starting this year.”

The amount is a half of the annual fees worth 30 million won, and considering the quality of the courses at KAIST, is almost a type of penalty for students.

President Suh said, “Up until now, KAIST has carried out intensive internal reforms, including the forfeiture of courses from professors with low lecturing quality, the adoption of a post-retirement status guarantee which will determine faculty dismissal within seven years of recruitment, and implementation of a dean’s full discretion on the faculty recruitment process.”

“The new debt-financed management plan deserves a chance to be tried,” he said.

mhjee@donga.com