"Remote Classes Continue in 2nd Semester" … Ministry of Education Provides 100 Billion KRW Emergency Support to Universities

Evaluation of Self-Help Efforts Including Special Scholarship Payments and Tuition Refunds
Universities with Reserves Over 100 Billion Won Excluded

[Asia Economy Reporter Jo In-kyung] The government will urgently provide 100 billion KRW to support the educational and research activities of universities where non-face-to-face classes are inevitable due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The distribution of support funds will vary depending on each university's self-help efforts, such as providing special scholarships to students or reducing tuition fees.

The Ministry of Education announced the basic plan for the "Emergency Support Project for University Non-Face-to-Face Education" on the 30th.

The Ministry first designated universities that made substantial self-help efforts, such as autonomous improvement universities, capacity-enhancing universities, and universities excluded from evaluation based on the results of the university basic competency diagnosis and teacher training institution competency diagnosis, as project targets. Additionally, universities with accumulated reserves of less than 100 billion KRW were limited to exclude those with relatively ample financial resources.

Of the total project budget of 100 billion KRW, 76 billion KRW was allocated to general four-year universities, and 24 billion KRW to junior colleges. The budget allocation will be distributed based on the ratio of each university's amount of actual self-help efforts multiplied by scale, region, and reserve weights to the total amount of all universities.

Among these, actual self-help efforts include special scholarships paid based on communication and consultation with students, tuition fee reductions for the second semester, communication and housing support costs, and expenses for providing online lecture equipment. If existing internal and external scholarships were reallocated as special scholarships, the amount is excluded from the actual self-help effort amount.

Universities wishing to participate in the project must submit a project plan to the Ministry of Education by September 18, including details of actual self-help efforts and resource procurement based on consultations with students, project fund execution plans, and plans for operating and managing the quality of online lectures in the second semester. The Ministry of Education will review the project plans and support the finalized project funds for each university around October.

The support funds can be used to improve the quality of online lectures to enhance educational quality, COVID-19 prevention, improvement of the educational environment, and purchase of experimental and practical training equipment.

Park Baek-beom, Vice Minister of Education, said, "Despite the difficulties caused by COVID-19, we ask each university to communicate with students and devise ways to alleviate and support their hardships." He added, "The Ministry of Education will also actively support to mitigate the decline in educational and research capabilities of universities due to financial burdens and to improve the quality of education."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.