Establishment of Foreign Language Schools to Be Limited

Establishment of Foreign Language Schools to Be Limited. October. 30, 2007 03:28. foryou@donga.com ceric@donga.com.

The establishment of new foreign language schools will become more difficult. The Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development plans to stop its negotiations with Gyeonggi Province and Incheon, where foreign language schools already exist, over adding new foreign language high schools in their regions until next June. Meanwhile, it will toughen its screening procedures for licensing new foreign language schools in other regions such as Gangwon Province, Gwangju, and Ulsan, where foreign language school do not exist.

Although the Education Ministry was forecast to announce strong measures such as turning “special purpose high schools” to “specialized high schools,” it put off its decision to push new measures such as the closing special purpose high schools until June next year.

The Education Ministry, which held a meeting on Monday with school superintendents from 16 major cities and provinces at the Central Government Complex, Sejongno, Seoul, discussed under the theme of “Measures to Improve and Reform the Operations of High Schools for Elite Education,” and announced its plans to normalize special purpose high schools.

The ministry decided to defer the licensing of new special purpose high schools in cities and provinces where foreign language school have been already established until next June, on the condition of reviewing individual cases in limited circumstances. Meanwhile, it will strengthen the licensing procedures for new special purpose high schools in the other cities and provinces.

Although experts predicted that the ministry would take strong measures such as prohibiting establishing new special purpose high schools, it is believed to have postponed its initial plans to June 2008 due to negative sentiments among the public against the drastic school reform measures. However, there is a large possibility that the ministry will amend its measures when the government changes in February next year.

In response, negotiations for establishing new special purpose high schools in Incheon, which planned to launch a foreign language school in 2009, and Gyeonggi Province, which planed to open five foreign language schools between 2009 and 2011, will be suspended. The five regions – Incheon (Michuhol High School), Gyeonggi Province (Icheon, Guri, Jeongmyeong and Siheung Foreign Language High School and Hwaseong International High School), Gangwon Province (Gangwon Foreign Language High School), Ulsan (Ulsan International High School) – proposed the establishment of foreign language schools to the ministry.

The Education Ministry stated that it will make “The Regulations for the Designation, Notification and Operation of Special Purpose High Schools” as a measure to normalize the special high schools and specify the procedures and grounds for canceling the designation of special purpose high schools.”

The ministry also plans to implement new measures to clearly define operation conditions and facility standards when negotiating the designation of new special purpose high schools and take punitive measures or cancel the licensing when they operate outside of the boundaries of the purpose of their establishment, such as running prep-course for medical schools.

The Education Ministry will draw out two long-term measures and implement one of them from June 2008.