KS's Global Insights into Higher Education

"No Uruguay Round! Farmers Perish Amid Plummeting Rice Prices!" It seems like yesterday when I was an elementary school student in a humble farming hamlet in Jeongeup, Jeollabuk-do. My grandparents, small-scale farmers, lived there. I still vividly remember the unease I felt upon seeing a bold, red slogan painted on our village community hall. I may not have fully grasped its precise meaning then, but an overwhelming sense that our lives were being infiltrated by something substantial was imprinted in my young mind. It's been 30 years since the conclusion of the Uruguay Round. This led to the foundation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995 and the enforcement of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), signifying the opening of the education market. In 1993, I was a primary schooler; a decade later, I went to the university. The noticeable shifts on campus, such as the surge in 'English-mediated lectures', 'international students',...