The government has placed a year-long ban on 13 colleges from accepting new students from overseas for poor management and illegality in admissions.

The schools ― four two-year colleges and nine universities including Seoul Women’s University, the University of Suwon and Hansei University in Gyeonggi Province ― will be barred from issuing student visas from the second semester of this year, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology announced on Sunday.

The restriction does not apply to exchange students, graduate students and those who are already enrolled.

The ministry said the banned schools either had poor curriculum support and management systems, showed a high dropout rate or accepted students without a proper qualification process. Some students were seen to stay illegally in Korea, the ministry said.

As of October 2012, there were 87,278 foreign students from more than 150 countries and the number is expected to surpass 100,000 this year, according to the ministry.

In order to provide systematic support and control the quality of the curricula for foreign students, the government introduced the International Education Quality Assurance System in 2011.

Under the guidelines set by the ministry, “substandard” or poorly-managed institutions are barred from receiving standard certification for admission for foreign students.

The ministry inspected in October more than 350 higher education institutions to check their admission requirements for international students, dropout rate and the number of staff for foreign students.

Meanwhile, the ministry said that so far 30 institutions, including Seoul National University, Korea University and Hanyang University, have received certifications for quality management and admission for international students.
By Oh Kyu-wook (596story@heraldcorp.com)