Assemblyman Yoon Young-deok: "Ministry of Education Must Devise Measures as Local Universities Face Admission Quota Reduction Crisis"

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Yoon Jamin] National Assembly member Yoon Young-deok (Democratic Party of Korea·Gwangju Dongnam-gap) urged Deputy Prime Minister Yoo Eun-hye to prepare countermeasures to address the crisis caused by the reduction of admission quotas at regional universities.

At the National Assembly Education Committee plenary meeting on the 16th, Rep. Yoon said, “Although the crisis of regional universities has been raised for over 10 years through school-age population forecasts, the Ministry of Education has failed to present clear measures.”

He continued, “During the six years from 2013 to 2018, while university restructuring was underway, the total university admission quota, which was about 560,000, decreased to about 500,000. During this period, metropolitan universities reduced their quota by about 14,000 out of 200,000, but regional universities cut about 46,000 out of 350,000,” he claimed.

In terms of reduction rate, regional universities (13.2%) cut nearly twice as many quotas as metropolitan universities (7.0%).

He also emphasized, “Despite the significant quota reductions by regional universities, they were discriminated against in government financial support compared to metropolitan universities,” adding, “According to the ‘2019 Government University Financial Support Status,’ the support per metropolitan university was 22.5 billion KRW, whereas the support per regional university was only about half that amount, 12.1 billion KRW.”

Rep. Yoon further explained that financial support based on performance-oriented evaluations has widened the gap between regional and metropolitan universities.

He pointed out, “Most of the consequences of university restructuring and quota reductions have been borne by regional universities, and if the school-age population continues to decline, the damage to regional universities will inevitably increase.”

He added, “The crisis faced by regional universities cannot be resolved by the Ministry of Education alone,” emphasizing, “A cross-ministerial response plan should be prepared with the Ministry of Education at the center.”

In response, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education Yoo Eun-hye said, “We plan to announce the basic plan for the Regional Universities and Local Talent Development Plan by the end of this month,” and “We will establish specific measures through communication with the field within the first half of this year.”

She continued, “We will prepare measures for innovation across higher education, including the Regional Innovation Platform Project, a local innovation project based on cooperation between local governments and universities,” and stated, “We will strive to discuss the issues of regional universities with other ministries from the perspective of balanced regional development.”

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