[Indepth interview]Unshackling college admissions

The Korean Council for University Education is taking on a new role and a new status. The association, which was established in 1982 and has a membership of 201 four-year colleges and universities, will be taking college admission matters into its own hands after the Lee Myung-bak administration takes over on Feb. 25.
The Ministry of Education and Human Resources has always kept tight control over college admission policies. However, the council will oversee individual colleges and universities, giving them autonomy to administer their own admissions.
The JoongAng Ilbo recently interviewed the incoming president of the council, Sohn Byung-doo, who begins his term this April, and asked him about the self-governing admission system.

Q. The Korean Council for University Education will now directly deal with admission matters. What are your plans?
A. I will eliminate the rigid guidelines on essay tests. The Ministry of Education and Human Resources banned many things, including short-answer questions, which evaluate a student’s knowledge of specific subjects. This kind of regulation was the ministry’s reason for existence. If we give the universities the freedom to admit anyone they want, there is no reason the ministry has to get involved. If this happens, it is no longer necessary to give guidelines to universities on various things, including how much weight they must give high school academic records in the admissions process.
Until now, the ministry has been involved in so many little details of the admission process ― even controlling the essay tests ― the only opportunity the universities have to differentiate students applying for admission.

To change the current status of the council, its structure and role need to be changed first. Some fear that when universities gain too much freedom, there could be admission irregularities and corruption.
We are planning to have a new governance team, which will deal with any problems in the era of the self-regulated admission system. We will conduct intensive internal audits and work to prevent ethical problems. We will do our best to be fully responsible for our actions.
For example, we will consider bringing criminal complaints against a university if we find any wrongdoing.
The university chairmen and board members will discuss the council’s governance issues. The presidential transition team has to outline the duties that we are going to take over first. I don’t think there will be a big problem in conducting our admission business with the current system. But the governance issue involving self-management and auditing requires more work and discussion. We will have more talks with the transition team about governance matters.
The big issue here is self-regulation and responsibility. On Jan. 4, when President-elect Lee Myung-bak made a toast for “autonomy and responsibility” at the council’s reception, he joked, “We were so thirsty for autonomy.”
I don’t want the council to be a new power. The key is self-regulation. If we become another power after taking power from the Education Ministry, what’s the use of self-regulation?
We will create a system that holds individual universities responsible for their actions, and the council, which is comprised of university representatives, will govern the system as an association of universities.

When did the transition team inform you it would hand over admission matters to the council?
We haven’t heard from the transition team officially on this issue. But handing over admissions oversight to the council is one of President-elect Lee’s pledges. Right after the election result was announced, we set up a task force in the council. The higher education director is the head of the team, and 11 professors who have previous experience in admissions affairs are on the team. I will talk with current Council President Lee Jang-moo soon and call a chairman-level meeting for a briefing on the information the task force has gathered so far. We will talk about what we can expect when the Ministry of Education transfers the admissions control to us. What we discuss at the chairman-level talks will be evaluated and discussed by the council’s board members. We will have a big picture before the new administration begins.

It seems the new grading system for the national college entrance exam has caused many problems. Do you have any plans for this issue?
This area is very technical. The task force will come up with some alternative solutions. The opinions of the admission directors of each university are very important, too. A different solution will be needed for each university. High schools also need to provide detailed academic records to the universities. There will be more differentiated admission systems among universities.

If the admission guidelines vary widely from college to college, won’t the applicants have a more difficult time?
The admission directors, who have lost just as much sleep over the admission issue as the students and their parents, will come up with some detailed suggestions. Each university will consider various plans, but eventually the various admission systems won’t be too numerous; a few will survive.

Some critics say self-governance in college admissions could negatively affect high school education. Some say it will increase private education costs and worsen public education.
To date, the Ministry of Education’s view was that college admissions policy was the solution for public education problems. This is where the ministry is wrong. Its analysis of the root causes of the problems and the solutions for them are all wrong. Improving public education requires its own solution, totally separate from the college admission issue. Evaluation and competition could be one solution.

Sohn Byung-doo is the chancellor of Sogang University. Noted as a business-minded educational leader, he is the first chancellor at the Catholic university who is not a priest. He assumed the post in 2005 after serving seven years as the vice president of the Federation of Korean Industries. He worked for many years at various conglomerates, including Samsung.

By Bae No-pil JoongAng Ilbo [estyle@joongang.co.kr]