ON AUG. 17, 2021, the Ministry of Education (MOE) announced the provisional results for universities’ “Certification and Competency Evaluation,” which determines the beneficiaries for the government’s support fund. Out of the 285 universities evaluated, 25 four-year colleges and 27 community colleges were notified of their disqualification. They were later given three days to raise objections to the results, to which 47 of the disqualified universities have submitted their request for reevaluation. However, on Sep. 3, 2021, the MOE’s final report revealed that none of the objections were entertained. As a result, these universities will not receive their portion of the government’s ₩14.4 billion financial subsidiaries for the next three years. 

What is the “certification and competency evaluation?”

   First introduced in 2015, the Korean Educational Development Institute indicates two reasons as to why the evaluation is necessary: to better adapt to the demands of future social changes and to adjust governmental spending in relation to the decline in student population at local colleges. 

   Universities are evaluated based on criteria such as university management responsibility, student support, and educational accomplishments on a 100 point scale of which points can also be deducted if corruption or fraud are found. The evaluation result essentially shapes the universities’ budget plan for the next three years, and the stakes were especially high this year because it guaranteed participation in the recently launched “University Innovation Support Project.” Inclusion in the project warrants the government’s additional support for universities in response to the pandemic situation. Universities that have failed the evaluation will be excluded from the ₩14.4 billion project, only receiving standard financial support for national scholarships and student loans. 

   While the evaluation’s genuine purpose may be to raise the quality of higher-level education, its impact on university budgets has been a topic of controversy for suspended universities and their respective student bodies. Among the excluded are Sungshin Women’s University and Inha University, which came as a surprise since both are well-known, prestigious universities. 

Rising concerns of universities

   The MOE assures that unselected universities need not to be considered about gaining a bad reputation because not passing the evaluation only means that they will not receive additional funding, which does not necessarily entail them being “badly managed universities.” They clarified how “badly managed universities” are determined separately by the “Universities for Limited Financial Support” evaluation, which was conducted earlier in April of this year. However, Kim Sun-hee—president of Sungshin Women’s University’s Alumni Association—thinks otherwise. She claimed that despite the absence of an official designation as a “badly managed university,” the general public will perceive it in the same context when results are publicized[1]. Hence, universities worry the reports will jeopardize the decades that went into building a university’s reputation and hurt student admission rates. 

   In an interview with The Yonsei Annals, an official from Sangji University shared similar sentiments. He stressed how the release of the results in late August, right before the admission period, is an unnecessary, negative pretext as universities can be seen as an “inadequate education institution.” 

    Alongside objections about the evaluation’s unwarranted labeling, universities also raised their voices about the ambiguity of the scoring system. The first point of contention is the arbitrariness of raw scores. According to University News Network, schools that have received 89 points, an objectively high score, have been deemed unqualified[2]. An official from an unqualified university even claimed to have received a score in the 90s but somehow did not make the cut[2].

    Another problem is the uncertainty of each criterion’s weighted value[3]. Inha University revealed that it had received perfect scores in the “employment rate,” “student recruitment rate,” and “education cost reduction rate.” On the other hand, it received 67 points for “curriculum and operation improvement” and 72.3 points for “participation and communication among members,” which accounts for its total of 87.6 points. Inha University’s President Cho Myung-woo stated the university is perplexed as to why the relative deficiency in the latter categories seem to have had an immense impact on its net score, despite its stellar performance in other criteria. The university is also unable to understand the sharp decline in the two latter categories. This is because in 2018, the last evaluation, Inha had received 92.7 points and 100 points respectively, and the school sensed no significant change in its status. In fact, Inha was ranked first among universities in the metropolitan area in the Advancement for College Education (ACE+) project—a MOE project that supports the improvement of universities’ overall educational quality with the aim of fostering notable educational institutions. 

   As unqualified schools accused evaluation scores of being unfounded, they have not been quiet about the evaluation’s unreasonable grading scheme. With the help of the faculty committee on August 23, Inha University students explicitly expressed their discontent by hanging their gwa-jam[4] on all of its auditorium’s chairs, demanding disclosure of the details of the evaluation process. President Cho argued it was a poor judgment made on the MOE’s part to exclude the ACE+ project for the evaluation. Cho claimed, “We strongly object to the MOE’s evaluation,” as Inha’s excellent educational environment had already been proven by the ACE+. Similarly, on Aug. 30, 2021, the faculty committee and student body of Sungshin Women’s University protested in front of Sungshin building and held a press conference demanding for the evaluation system to be improved.

   In response to these frustrations, an official at the MOE stated there is no definite minimum number of points that universities should receive to be qualified since the process is not based on an absolute scoring system[2]. They explained, “90% of the qualified universities have been selected by region, and the remaining 10% were selected in order of high scores at the national level regardless of the region”[2]. 

Local universities

   While the MOE asserts the evaluation system is administered fairly, in reality, many of the disqualified universities are provincial universities. For example, two schools, Hanlim-Seongsim University and Gangwon Provincial University were the only ones that passed the evaluation in the Gangwon area. The selection rate for universities in Gangwon was only 13.3%, whereas the rates for other provinces such as Seoul and Incheon were respectively 88.9% and 100%. In an interview with the Annals, the official from Sangji University claimed the school “seems to have been undervalued competing with other universities” because of Gangwon’s small population size and weak industrial base. To prevent regional imbalances from growing, he asserts that “the criteria should take geological factors more into consideration.”

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   Many of the unqualified universities are planning to take strong measures like filing an administrative lawsuit against the MOE. The official from Sangji University stated they “will take necessary measures similar to that of other universities” to show their strong disapproval for the evaluation, which limits their freedom and voices as individual educational organizations. Granted, a prolonged battle is expected to take place between the MOE and related universities.

[1] Asia Time

[2] University News Network

[3] Varying degrees of points are designated to each criterion in relation to its importance. 

[4] Gwa-jam: Varsity jacket