Director: Daniel C. Levy

Corruption and Dismissal in South Korea Private Higher Education

(Summary by Prachayani Praphamontripong)

PROPHE Summary:
South Korea's ministry of education has ordered three private institutions to turn over $15.3-million and dismiss 68 professors and officials due to bribery, and mishandling of funds. The ministry has withheld approval for one board of trustees and replaced another's. The government found instances of administrators using millions of university dollars for personal gain, making promotion decisions based on bribes, and wrongly transferring millions in tuition fees to establish a University of Foreign Studies with counterfeit documentation. Although they account for more than four in five South Korea's institutions and get considerable government funding, private colleges and universities are rarely subjected to audits by the government. These realities contribute now to government efforts to formulate a bill shifting some control over private universities from the institutions' trustees to the education ministry. However, adversaries warn there would be protests and legal action if such a bill is introduced.

For the full story see the Chronicle of Higher Education, September 2004. "South Korea Orders Firing of 68 Professors and Officials in Crackdown on Private Colleges," by Alan Brender.

PROPHE Observation:
Concern over private higher education corruption and quasi-corruption is major and warranted in many countries. However, recent findings in developed systems like the South Korean and Japanese are especially noteworthy. Both countries have notable majorities of overall enrollment in the private sector. Such numbers give the sector a power base with which to fight threatening proposals. How far South Korean governmental reforms can introduce appropriate oversight without crippling private institutions' autonomy and initiative remains to be seen.