Yoo Eun-hye: "Universities with over 100 billion won in reserves also refund tuition... Difficult to hold CSAT online"

Most Universities Plan Partial Tuition Refund
Monitoring to Prevent Disadvantages for Students Participating in Lawsuits

Remote CSAT Implementation Unlikely
Separate A and B Versions Also Practically Difficult to Prepare

Eun-Hye Yoo, Deputy Prime Minister for Social Affairs and Minister of Education, is announcing the transition to remote classes for kindergartens, elementary, middle, high, and special schools located in the metropolitan area at the briefing room of the main building of the Government Seoul Office on the 25th. Photo by Moohonam munonam@

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Hyun-joo] Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education Yoo Eun-hye stated on the 25th, "It has been identified that 17 universities with reserves exceeding 100 billion KRW are also planning to support students."

Deputy Prime Minister Yoo made this remark while attending the full session of the National Assembly's Education Committee, explaining each university's response measures regarding students' demands for tuition refunds.

Earlier, through the third supplementary budget, the Ministry of Education secured 100 billion KRW and named the fund the "University Non-face-to-face Education Emergency Support Project," intending to support universities' remote classes. In effect, this budget was planned to be used to support universities refunding tuition fees for the first semester. At that time, the Ministry excluded universities with reserves over 100 billion KRW from the project, considering they had sufficient financial capacity even if they refunded tuition. As of last year, 20 universities had accumulated reserves exceeding 100 billion KRW, including Hongik University, Yonsei University, and Ewha Womans University. According to Deputy Prime Minister Yoo, most of these universities plan to provide special scholarships.

Deputy Prime Minister Yoo emphasized, "It is understood that 13 major universities in the metropolitan area and 29 national universities also have plans to support students," adding, "We will monitor to ensure that students participating in tuition refund lawsuits do not face disadvantages in university-specific support projects."

Seoul National University to renegotiate scholarship payment plans in September
Expansion and improvement of interactive real-time remote classes
Increase from about 10% to 20-30%

Regarding Seoul National University, which has not yet announced plans to provide special scholarships, she explained, "The university has held two consultations with students and is holding a third meeting in early September to discuss special scholarship payment plans."

With the 2021 College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) 100 days away and the spread of COVID-19 ongoing, Deputy Prime Minister Yoo reiterated that the CSAT is planned to be held as scheduled.

She stated, "Our priority is to proceed with the CSAT on December 3 as planned," adding, "If social distancing measures for infectious diseases reach level 3, plans may need to be changed, but discussing postponement now could increase confusion on the ground."

She continued, "Fairness is the most important aspect of the CSAT," and said, "While we are preparing plans for the worst-case COVID-19 scenarios, conducting the exam remotely is difficult to implement immediately in our society."

On the 25th, 100 days before the 2021 College Scholastic Ability Test, third-year students are attending classes at Yale Girls' High School in Eunpyeong-gu, Seoul. Photo by Hyunmin Kim kimhyun81@

Regarding the proposal to split examinees into two groups and prepare separate CSAT questions as Type A and Type B, she said, "There are practical issues with preparing two types of exam questions," and thus it is also difficult.

In response to concerns that the expansion of remote classes could widen academic disparities, she pledged to improve the system to expand interactive real-time remote classes. Deputy Prime Minister Yoo said, "During the first semester remote classes, about 10% of schools conducted interactive real-time classes, which received high satisfaction," adding, "By enhancing the system to enable interactive real-time classes, we believe the proportion of schools offering such classes can be increased to 20-30% in the second semester."

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