The law school issue

The heated debate over introducing U.S.-style law schools in Korea is reaching its peak.
After conflict with the Blue House concerning the selection of universities approved to open law schools, the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development now says it will add one or two law schools before the final sanction scheduled for September.
Adding these universities to the list is irrelevant to the core issue.
University chancellors are threatening to resign while the front of the Central Government Complex in Seoul is full of commotion with university heads, professors and students in protest.
Schools are announcing that they are going to take the matter to court.
If the current plan is carried out, it will result in expected failure.
Both the schools that got picked and those that got excluded are voicing complaints, with the former saying that the student quota is too low and the latter calling the selection process “unfair.”
Some schools are even planning to seek a government inspection of the selection process.
Public trust in this law school selection has been eroded and it is almost impossible to expect the law schools to find their feet once they are opened.
It is now meaningless for the current administration and the Education Ministry to try to find a solution.
The problem should now be resolved by the incoming administration.
To get to the bottom of this conflict, the question of why these U.S.-style law schools were introduced in the first place should be revisited and reflected on.
The main objective is to train more legal experts and make the current legal education system more professional.
To achieve this, the current limit of only 2,000 law students nationwide should be increased drastically.
Also, all universities should have the right to open these new law schools.
The quality of the new education system should be decided by free competition between the schools.
It is up to the new incoming administration, mainly the heads of the Education Ministry, the Ministry of Justice and the Supreme Court, to come up with a solution to this complicated situation, even if the final decision on the law school problem is delayed another year.