‘36 universities poorly manage foreign students’

The Education Ministry on Thursday listed 36 universities to face sanctions for poor management of international students.

The move aims to clamp down on increases in foreign student enrollment for financial benefit and lax management, which has led to more illegal immigrant students here.

The ministry conducted a four-month inquiry into 347 schools ― 201 four-year universities and 146 vocational colleges ― to assess how well they manage foreign students.

Of the 36 schools, 17 will face restrictions in visa issuance to new foreign students for a year from next fall semester, 12 are to be subject to consulting on their international student management programs and seven will be ordered to correct some practices immediately, according to officials.

The ministry formed a committee that certifies and supervises schools in their foreign student management and instructed the panel to conduct the inquiry in terms of quantitative and qualitative criteria including drop-out rate, admission process, financial stability based on benefit from accepting foreign students, study management, language and campus life.

Some major universities in Seoul are among the 17 universities to face visa issuance restrictions for admitting ineligible students through improper procedures and offering reduced tuition fees.

“There are students who first come to Korea with a student visa but stay here for work after it expires,” said an official at the briefing.

The schools include Seoul-based Hansung University, Soongsil University, Sungshin Women’s University, and eight provincial colleges including Hanmin School, Sangmyung University Cheonan Campus and Daegu Arts University.

Hanmin School showed the highest rate of students illegally staying in Korea with the inquiry finding 17 out of the total 35 freshmen to be illegal immigrants.

Other universities on the list reduced fees for foreign students by 35 to 50 percent and accepted an increasing number of foreign students without taking proper admission steps, the inquiry found.

Of the illegal student immigrants, about 70 percent are from China, with the others from Vietnam and Mongolia.

The ministry also selected 10 schools which run student management programs well and whose practices can be a good example in international student management and distributed to other schools.

The schools include Hanyang University, Yonsei University, Ewha Womans University, Sogang University, Seoul National University, Kyung Hee University and Korea University among four-year universities and Dongyang Mirae University and Inha Technical College among vocational colleges.

A total of 83,842 international students attended Korean universities in 2010, quadruple the amount four years ago and the number is expected to hit an all-time high of 100,000 in 2012, according to a ministry figure.

By Lee Woo-young  (wylee@heraldcorp.com)