KS's Global Insights into Higher Education

"Kim underscored the necessity for expanding the countries of origin for foreign students. He noted that significant potential student markets such as South America and India remain largely untapped, thereby necessitating strategic national-level diplomatic initiatives." "Kim shared that, despite a drop from 160,000 in 2019 to 150,000 during the COVID-19 crisis, the number of foreign students has climbed to 210,000 as of this March. The encouraging aspect is the upswing in enrollments in both degree programs and Korean language courses compared to the previous year." "However, he raised concerns over the disproportionate percentage of foreign students originating from just two countries, Vietnam (73,000 students) and China (67,000 students), accounting for 66% of the total. He further compared South Korea's past governmental policies on foreign student recruitment critically with those of Japan, the USA, and Australia, citing smaller investment levels and l...

As we commence January 2023, it's the season of college admissions in South Korea. The Gaokao, often referred to as the "Chinese CSAT," is a standardized national college entrance examination in China. Introduced in 1952, a good 42 years earlier than South Korea's equivalent, the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT), it is known as the largest exam in the world held by a single country, with over 10 million test takers annually. Unsurprisingly, the Gaokao serves as a gateway for Chinese students to enter Chinese universities. But what will happen if Korean universities create a 'Gaokao admission track'? The concept of a nation's university entrance exam transcending its borders and being adopted globally presents an intriguing scenario. The 'one-time filtering' method, which sifts out student eligibility and capacity through standardized tests managed by the government, is prevalently employed in countries where the Confucian tradition of societa...