A Chinese student has been elected as the first president of a foreign student body at a Korean university in Seoul.

The 25-year-old female student, He Yun from China, was elected president of the nation’s first foreign student council of Kyung Hee University, while 22-year-old male student Sunzhiwei from the Inner Mongolia autonomous region in China was picked as vice president last Friday, according to the school.

The two students, both undergraduates at the university, will represent about 1,400 foreign students at the university for a year, officials said.

Kyung Hee University has about 2,700 foreign undergraduate and graduate students from about 70 countries, according to the school data. 

“I decided to run for leader of the foreign student council as I wanted to solve difficulties that foreign students face here in Korea such as getting low grades due to language difficulties,” said He.

He said that globalization is driving up the number of foreign students in Korea, emerging as a sensitive issue to Korean universities. One frequently mentioned problem for them in the local media is the language barrier.

Globalization is a criterion measured in the annual university evaluation for college rankings.

He made pledges to solve problems facing foreign students, including improving Korean proficiency through a one-on-one mentoring program with Korean students, increasing scholarships, providing a school menu suitable for foreign students and expanding the number of classes only for foreign students.

“I would like to create an environment in which foreign students can easily hang out with Korean students and improve their Korean language ability as well,” said He.

He said she decided to come to Korea to study after watching the famous Korean TV drama “Winter Sonata” in her junior year at a Chinese college.

Sunzhiwei, who decided to study Korean due to its rareness in his country, said he hopes to expand the scholarships for foreign students as the tuition burden is relatively greater for foreign students than for Koreans.

According to recent government data, the number of foreign students attending local universities topped 85,000 as of June and is expected to reach 100,000 in 2012.

By Lee Woo-young (wylee@heraldcorp.com)