Apologies if this is in the wrong place, or if there are already 20 threads exhausting the topic, but the search engine is temporarily borked for me. If need be, I've got no problems merging or deleting this post with pre-existing conversations. Scroll down for tl;dr summary.I've been reading about the university shake-ups and wonder if people on this site have input they'd like to throw in. Or if there are questions other people want to ask, but they don't know where to put it, etc... Specifically, I'm referring to the past few months and the events surrounding universities in Korea.
Step 1: Protest crazy tuition fees
Step 2:
Audit 35 random universities, public and private
Step 3:
Name-n-shame 43 universities (blacklist and tag for subsidy cuts and/or
"reform")
Step 4: ??
Step 5:
Privatise Seoul National University. Because that'll fix everything.
You've probably read all the news bits already (you imaginary everyperson, you), so I'm wondering what your take is on it. How are these newsbits connected? What else is or isn't going on here? Any current or former Korean university teachers here with some insight? What do I use a fork with? Have there been other events you know about (closures, mergers, etc) that are related but haven't gotten the same kind of press yet?
(I'm not doing a survey or anything -- just assuming I'm not the only one watching and wondering what's the what.)
From where I am [EDIT - in NA, Toronto], privatising public institutions, taking more corporate cash for research funding and ridiculous tuition fees are all huge issues, and it is a global(ization) thing. No mystery there. For example, there's a gold company promising major funds for a sketchy-sounding 'world leader' department, undergrads are coming out 30,000 in debt, and if you can explain how your research will benefit private industry you're more likely to get public funding through scholarships and whatnot. I'm not wide-eyed and appalled that omg-crazy-korean-education-system, just very curious to know more about the specifics.
[tinfoil] btw, was it a random review of 35 institutions including 9 public universities (as all the english news sources seem to indicate)? Or 9 public in addition to the 35? Because that would make the "random" selection seem a little less random considering 43 universities got 'blacklisted' not a month and a bit later... [/tinfoil]
If you're pissed off at this post for any reason,
I offer you some girltalk in recompense. So your clicking on this post wasn't a complete waste of your time.
If, on the other hand, ANY of this is news to you like it was to me...
tl;dr - Interesting overview in
the Chronicle of what might currently be going on with Korean universities. Ideas?
