Suh Nam-pyo, president of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, announced Wednesday that he would resign in March after his reform drive sharply divided the school for the past six years.

The announcement, however, is setting the stage for another round of conflict with the board of the country’s top research university.

“I will leave my office in March 2013, despite my remaining term, and will cooperate to elect the new president before January,” Suh said in a news conference in Seoul. His term was originally set to end in July 2014.

The announcement came ahead of the next week’s board meeting, reportedly called by chairman Myung Oh to discuss Suh’s fate.

Suh publicly blamed chairman Oh on Wednesday for his abrupt resignation, saying: “For the past two years, the chairman’s goal was nothing but to drive out the president from the office.”

“But I think he should be the one to resign,” Suh said.

The 77-year-old, former MIT professor first took the helm of KAIST in 2006 and secured his second four-year term in July 2010.

But he has been at odds since last year with the 16-member board, rank-and-file professors and the student association, following a number of measures he introduced to reform the university. Some included strengthening tenure requirements for professors and withdrawing tuition-free status from under-performing students. Calls for his resignation grew after five students and a professor committed suicide in 2011.

Suh said he believes KAIST has successfully undergone radical changes in the past six years to be the world’s leading research institution.

“But in order to be the world’s top 10 university, KAIST’s fate should not be in the hands of only a handful of politicians and interest groups,” he claimed.

By Oh Kyu-wook (596story@heraldcorp.com)