Fulbright U.S. Education Center

The Korean government has sent official notices to Korean embassies around the world mandating them to scrap their customary practice of picking “unqualified” students for the state scholarship program.  The government has often accepted children of foreign ranking government officials even though they fall short of the minimum standards, a practice believed to help boost long-term relations between Korea and other countries.  As reported in The Korea Times, the National Institute for International Education (NIIED) said that 504 students were selected last year, 147 undergraduates and 357 graduate students. (click on graphic for larger version)

The article also says that “With the aim of making state scholarships a Korean branding project similar to the Fulbright Program, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology has this year integrated them into the “Global Korea Scholarship project, which has a budget of 51.5 billion won ($46.6 million).  This year the ministry plans to select 700 students.”

Last month we enjoyed hosting the State Department’s Social, Mobile and Visual Media Workshop on “Advising in the Digital Age.”   You may want to check out the Workshop website at http://workshop.educationusa.or.kr/

In conjunction with the workshop, we put together a short promotional video describing our web-based services.  I hope you’ll take a moment to view it on our new YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcixIJG0eZg

Please also note that we have formatted our U.S. Education Center website for easy viewing on mobile devices such as the iPhone and are currently working on creation of a Fulbright U.S. Education Center Korean language app for the iPhone.   Take a look at http://educationusa.or.kr on your iPhone or Android device!    We have added the creation of a mobile version of your website as a new option in our suite of services.  For a complete description of these services see http://educationusa.or.kr/en/usec/services.php

Please share this information, including our new video, with your friends and associates.  Don’t hesitate to contact me (use this link) should you have any questions about these new services.

Jim Larson
Deputy Director
Fulbright Korea

The Chosun Ilbo has an interesting report by the job portal Job Korea of 2,042 salaried workers.   The survey focused on their regrets during the economic recession.  27.2 percent picked poor English skills, 25.1 percent chose lack of professional skills or licenses, and 15.3 percent answered lacking a degree from a prestigious university.  Office workers form a significant presence among students at English language schools in the Gangnam business district of Seoul.  Lunchtime classes at some schools are packed with office workers.  Many of them are focusing on improving their conversational skills.

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.

TOEFL, TOEIC and other English test scores will not be used as major elements in the process of admitting students to universities under the admissions officer system.  As reported in The Korea Times, this is part of new guidelines announced by the Korean Council for University Education (KCUE).  The new policy is in line with the government’s move to reduce private tutoring costs and reinvigorate the public school system.  More weight will be given to academic records from high schools, recommendations from teachers, and leadership activities.

Jonathan Levin, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts (at left in the picture) and Christopher M. Biehn, Vice President for Development and Alumni Relations at Drew University visited Fulbright on March 11.  They met with leadership of the Commission and are pictured here (click on the image to view a full-size photograph) in discussions with Deputy Director James Larson in the U.S. Education Center.

As reported in the Chosun Ilbo today, it will become easier for Korean universities to establish overseas campuses under a government plan to absorb demand for study abroad.  An official said the government will lift restrictions for overseas campuses of universities within this month and is preparing to support not only educational institutions, but also other services such as medical, IT and financial firms in branching out overseas.

Statistics Korea  has released a report showing that the student-to-teacher-ratio in Korean elementary schools dropped below 20 to 1 last year, while the proportion of those aged 65 and over to the entire population rose to 10.7 percent.  As reported in The Chosun Ilbo, the figures confirm the aging trend and low birthrate in Korea.   The student-to-teacher ratio in elementary schools stood at 19.8 to 1, as the number of elementary school children fell 15.9 percent between 2000 and 2009 from 4.02 million to 3.47 million.  The proportion of over 65s to the entire population reached 10.7 percent last year, up from 7.2 percent in 2000.

South Korea rose from the ashes of the Korean war to its current status as an advanced, industrialized economy on the strength of hard work and technology development.  However, most analyses of Korea’s development over the past half century point to education as a key.  The World Bank’s extensive study of Korea’s emergence as a Knowledge Economy came to this conclusion.

Most recently, during the current global financial crisis, Korea is among a handful of major industrial nations that have continued to boost education spending, despite the recession.  The others are China, Taiwan, Germany, France and Brazil,, according to research conducted at U.C. Berkeley’s Center for Studies in Higher Education and reported in The San Francisco Chronicle.

Today’s Joongang Daily has an interesting article summarizing the results of a recent study by the Korean Educational Development Institute (KEDI).  KEDI surveyed 6,600 students at 116 high schools across the country who also attend a hagwon (private institute) and asked them to rate hagwon and public school teachers in fourteen different dimensions.  Students were asked, for example, if they were satisfied with teachers, how much teachers were devoted to teaching, how well teachers were prepared for class, and so forth.

The ratings showed that students gave higher scores to hagwon teachers for preparing them for college entrance exams, and for trying to maintain closeness with students.  Some school teachers complained about the results of KEDI’s research, suggesting it was not appropriate to compare hagwon and public school teachers since their purposes were different.