This interesting article in The Australian has interesting statistics and information about internet usage in different countries, including Korea, of course, and how this affects trends in marketing and recruitment of educational institutions.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/social-media-sells-education/story-e6frgcjx-1226113733750
The U.S. Education and Testing Services has made the biggest change in its GRE general test in 60 years.
Officials of the Korean branch of ETS said that the agency has advanced the test technologically with emphasis on real-world applications.
The GRE general test is the most widely adopted test for graduate admission, with 230 countries acknowledging its results.
The good news for Korean students preparing for the test is that all international students will be able to take it once a month in the same advanced format, which means Koreans don’t have to go through taking a lengthy and bulky paper-based test here or fly to Japan to take the computer test.
Only the paper-based test has been available in Korea since 2002 when the country was penalized by the ETS because students illegally shared the questions and answers with other students, according to officials.
The revised test features new questions emphasizing real-world applications, a different scoring system and a new candidate-friendly design, they said.
Students will have more flexibility to move back and forth between questions and edit or change answers ― similar to the internet-based TOEFL test.
“The launch of the GRE revised general test marks a new era in graduate and business school admission, an era that means a friendlier testing experience and even more useful results for graduate and business schools,” said David Payne, vice president of the higher education division of ETS.
Would-be graduate students have a chance to take the revised test at 50 percent discounted price from August to September. More information on the test is available at www.ets.org/gre.
By Lee Woo-young (wylee@heraldm.com)
http://www.koreaherald.com/national/Detail.jsp?newsMLId=20110817000566
Private universities in Korea are preparing for declining revenues due to a persistently low birthrate, mirroring the situation in Japan, which has seen a string of bankruptcies among private colleges due to the same problem.
According to Statistics Korea on Sunday, the number of 18-year-olds in Korea inched up from 624,000 in 2005 to 701,400 in 2010 but will start dropping this year.
Sources: “Universities Brace for Dwindling Student Numbers” The Chosun Ibo, July 11, 2011. http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2011/07/11/2011071101097.html
Has the great Korean experiment in early overseas education failed? An increasing number of students who left the country at a young age are returning home to continue their university studies here because they find it difficult to get jobs there. At the same time, the number of secondary schoolchildren going abroad is also declining.
Sources: “Overseas Study Loses Its Luster” The Chosun Ibo, May 23, 2011. http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2011/05/23/2011052300355.html
According to the 2011 university rankings for English Language and Literature published on Thursday by ranking firm Quacquarelli Symonds, eight Korean universities ranked in the top 200.
Seoul National University came 46th, and Korea University, Sogang University, and Yonsei University between 51st and 100th. Ewha Womans University and Hanyang University were in the third 50, and Sungkyunkwan University and Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in the fourth.
Source: “8 Korean Universities Rank Among Top 200 English Literature Programs” The Chosun Ilbo, June 3, 2011
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2011/06/03/2011060300765.html
The number of four-year universities charging annual tuition fee over W8 million increased from 34 in 2010 to 50 this year (US$1=W1,069). Tuition at public universities rose 0.6 percent over the last year to W4.43 million, and at private universities it was up 2.29 percent to W7.69 million. Korea University’s medical school charges a hefty W12.80 million.
But with 40 percent of the country’s 16.7 million salaried workers earning only W1-2million a month, how many among the 3.5 million students can afford to pay such enormous fees?
Universities in Korea have raised their fees by 5 to 10 percent every year over the last decade, except during the economic crisis. Per-capita tuition was W2.41 million at public universities and W4.79 million at private universities in 2001 and has risen 60 to 84 percent over the last 10 years.
According to OECD statistics, tuition fees in Korea are the second highest among member nations after the U.S. But despite soaring fees, the student-to-teacher ratio remains at 32.7, which is twice the OECD average, while dormitories can admit only 17.3 percent of students. Universities need to be able to house at least 25 percent of their students. Naturally students are wondering where all of their money is being spent.
The high fees are the result of universities’ strong dependence on them. Public universities draw 40 percent of their budget from tuition fees and private universities 65 percent. School foundations should be responsible for gathering donations and contributions and investing the school’s assets to generate profits, but Korean universities have an old habit of buying up land that is not immediately needed and building memorial halls and auditoriums that cost tens of billions of won, tapping into tuitions to finance them. Many universities also appropriate fees to pay for medical insurance and pensions of their employees, which should be funded by the school foundation.
Many private universities overstate their budgets and then use the figures as reasons to hike fees, only to amass the increased revenues into their accounts and repeat the process the following year. One private university in Seoul apparently amassed W40-60 billion every year between 2004 to 2008. As of 2009, 149 private universities in Korea held W6.9 trillion. As long as this practice persists, it will be impossible to lower the tuition burden and we should stop hoping for progress in university education.
Sources: “Universities Are Charging Too Much Money for Little Benefit” The Chosun Ibo, May 2, 2011. http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2011/05/02/2011050201249.html
Korean Language to Be Taught at U.S. Public High School
The Chosunilbo May 19, 2011
A public high school in California will start Korean classes in the upcoming fall semester.
Dougherty Valley High School, located in the eastern part of the state, has 200 students of Korean descent, which is 10 percent of the entire student body.
A group of Korean parents whose children attend the school petitioned for the language class and held various events to introduce Korean food and culture.
The president of the parents’ association said it is also looking into starting taekwondo and Korea clubs at the school.
Arirang News / May 19, 2011 11:23 KST
The Article in the Chosunilbo of May 1, 2010
English fluency is very important factor for a job in Korea companies and increased number of companies use English for their intranet boards, meeting and reports. Workers go to English-language schools to improve their English skills during lunch time or after work. The English divide between those who can speak English and those who cannot deepens.
As reported in the Joongang Daily newspaper, Koreans who cancel their registration for the GMAT (Graduate Management Admissions Test) will receive larger refunds soon. Korea’s Fair Trade Commission announced that the Graduate Management Admission Council, a Virginia-based organization that manages the tests, has agreed to raise the percentage of registration fees that local applicants can get back if they bail out of the test, whatever the reason. Starting in November, individuals who cancel their exam at least seven days in advance will get back 60 percent of their $250 registration fee. Those who cancel closer to the test will receive a 20 percent refund. Under the current policy, Koreans receive a 32 percent refund if they cancel more than seven days in advance, and no refund if they cancel closer to the test.
As reported in The Korea Times yesterday, Korean students will have to put up with tougher administration of the SAT test starting in May. The Educational Testing Service (ETS), the United States organizer of the test, said Sunday that applicants from Korea, Thailand and Vietnam will be barred from using any kind of electronic devices including mobile phones at examination sites from next month.
The test organizer also decided to treat applicants who are over 22 years old separately, regarding them as adult applicants. Also, only passports will be accepted as identification for those who take the SAT tests outside their homeland. The reinforcement of test management came after Korean SAT lecturers were apprehended for leaking test questions.
The SAT is administered seven or eight times a year to about 3 million students around the world.