Foreign language education moves to usher in change

The Education Ministry and lawmakers from the ruling Grand National Party yesterday agreed to withdraw the proposal by a high-ranking Blue House official to prohibit private education institutes, or hagwon, from having classes after 10 p.m., ending a month-long controversy.

The meeting to resolve the matter also produced a range of reform measures on the admissions system for foreign language and science high schools, as part of the government’s agenda to battle private-education fever.

Kwak Seung-jun, head of the Presidential Council for Future and Vision, said in late April that he would work to propose a law against late-night hagwon operations.

However, his proposal faced objections from the Education Ministry and other parties that said the ban would eventually give rise to other negative practices instead of quelling the private tutoring frenzy.

“Regulating hagwon in a uniform manner goes against the policy of the Lee Myung-bak administration to pursue autonomy,” said Yim Tae-hee, chief policymaker of the Grand National Party, in a press briefing after the meeting.

The meeting, attended by Rep. Yim, Education Minister Ahn Byong-man and related officials at the National Assembly, was aimed at designing policies for “normalizing public education and resolving overheated private education.”

Separately, the officials at the meeting consented to the idea of prohibiting foreign language high schools from administering written exams to applicants for 2010 admission. In principle, they are supposed to refer to applicants’ middle school academic reports, results of listening tests devised by respective schools and interviews. They have conventionally required applicants to take written exams.

Also, foreign language high schools will be forced to shrink the extra points they have been giving to mathematics and science in the academic transcripts for 2011 applicants. Since foreign language high schools were established to cater to students who want to polish their English or other foreign languages, they need to serve the original purpose, education officials said. They say the influx of students who excel in mathematics and science only helps the schools to have more of their students admitted to prestigious schools.

For science high schools, education authorities plan to remove the spots reserved for applicants who have won in mathematics or science competitions or those who have attended institutions for gifted children run by the government or universities. Instead those schools will introduce an admissions officer system, according to the Education Ministry. The measures will apply to middle school students who will apply for high schools next year.

Special-purpose high schools are at the center of attention due to the high proportion of students they send to the nation’s top universities. There are 30 foreign language high schools, with a total enrollment of 25,510. Twenty science high schools have enrollment of 3,457 nationwide.

By Seo Ji-eun [spring@joongang.co.kr]