韩留热(한국유학 붐), 어떻게 볼 것인가

Abstract

The number of foreign students studying in universities in Korea is rapidly increasing. According to the statistic of the Ministry of Justice, in the beginning of 2009 the total number of foreign students studying in Korea was 75.721 people and the vast majority of them were Chinese - 59.100 people that showed 78% from total. In 2004 the Korean government has presented the “Study Korea Project” in order to attract 50 thousand students from abroad by the year 2010, but in 2007 foreign students studying in Korea exceeded 50 thousand in number that showed surprising results achieving the initial goal by 3 years earlier. Due to the unexpected accomplishment, the Ministry of Education and Science Technology has amended and presented the “Study Korea Project Development Plan” that aims to increase number of foreign students up to 100 thousand students by the year 2012. Why the number of foreign students increased so tremendously? Can it continually show growth? Moreover, is the strategy driven forward by the government and every university to attract more foreign students proves itself desirable? Through this article we looked at the problem by seeking connection between the domestic causes and foreign circumstances and showed how to maintain the Korean wave of studying in Korea. The role that Korean government played as the supporting agent in the tremendous increase of foreign students studying in Korea is obvious, but the biggest cause of that is the critical situation that needs financial breakthrough Korean Universities faced due to the decline in application for admission. Universities that faced a difficult financial situation started to actively enroll foreign students to improve their profitability. The reason of the explosive increase in number of foreign students studying in Korea is also related to the booming situation in Chinese education market, rather than to internal Korean factor. The neighboring enormous Chinese education market is being popularized and globalized, that played a significant role in increase of foreign students in Korea. Recently, Chinese students choose to enter the Korean Universities through the Chinese Universities which set up sisterhood relationship with. In order to consistently enroll Chinese students in Korean Universities, it's very desirable to establish joint majors within the Chinese-Foreign Cooperation in Education program through the sister relations with Chinese Universities.