More Autonomy to Universities in Setting Enrollments

More autonomy in academic management will go to universities, and schools can determine their enrollment caps at their main and branch campuses.

The title of "full-time instructor" will also be dropped after 45 years of use.

The Education, Science and Technology Ministry made these announcements yesterday. The ministry had listened to opinions from schools on the 45 initiatives it planned to implement as part of the second phase of the college autonomy project announced last month.

Initiatives not requiring legislative approval shall be implemented immediately or be enforced from next year after amendments are introduced to the National Assembly.

In place of the title "full-time instructor," the ministry will use “assistant professor.” As a result, colleges will have the positions of professor, associate professor and assistant professor.

Moreover, schools will have more power to determine the enrollment at its main and branch campuses. Until now, a school had to satisfy requirements such as having the main and branch campuses keep a 100-percent level of faculty and campus area, and the aggregate level of 100 percent of administrative staff and for-profit basic assets.

In reality, few schools can meet the criteria. Thus, the faculty and the campus site shall be equal or larger than those of the previous year each for the main and branch campuses. Likewise, the level of staff and basic assets shall be equal or higher than the aggregate total of the main and branch campuses from the previous year. Then any school can adjust its enrollment.

If the main and branch campuses are located within a 20-kilometer radius in the same locality, the school can autonomously adjust its campus enrollments as long as the number of administrative staff is larger than the aggregate total of the campuses for the previous year. Thus, 12 universities such as Duksung Women’s University will benefit.

Furthermore, domestic universities can jointly run degree programs and decide on their own whether to jointly run courses only or to grant degrees as well. But granting degrees under the name of schools with joint-degree programs will be limited, though the schools can run programs jointly when applicants enroll in programs such as medicine, pharmacy, Oriental medicine, veterinary science or teaching. These majors` enrollment caps are determined by the government.

foryou@donga.com