Director: Daniel C. Levy

Weak Admissions Oversight in South Korea

PROPHE Summary :

The education ministry is charging a special task force to look into shoddy admissions practices in private higher education. This comes in the aftermath of a bribery scandal at Yonsei University but also against the broader backdrop that 75 private universities have never been inspected with regard to admissions, whereas public counterparts are reviewed in this respect every three years. More broadly still, only seven of 147 private universities have been subjected to inspection since the government put in inspection requirements (1979).

For the full story see The Korea Times, November 1, 2007 "Private Universities Face Probe Over Admissions," by Kang Shin-who and Park Si-soo.

PROPHE Observation:

The lack of government review is consistent with the notion that South Korea has witnessed substantial de-regulation in private higher education. Along with other countries of the region, South Korea had been noteworthy for a relatively stringent regulatory system-compared to most of the world. Then, as much of the world engaged in "delayed regulation" Asian countries moved to deregulate. Apparently this de-regulation in South Korea has been not only de jure but even more extreme de facto. The need for a transparent regulatory regime, not too lax and not too restrictive, remains a challenge. No doubt contributing to attracting public attention now is the fact that the bribery scandal has occurred at one of the country's leading universities.