The government is considering introducing a new school year in an effort to facilitate global exchanges of school members and lure more foreign students into local schools, the education ministry said Monday.

The move, which calls for starting the new school year in September, comes as local colleges and universities have experienced difficulties in recruiting foreign students and professors because South Korea's school year begins in March.

The ministry said it plans to collect opinions from education experts, parents and teachers starting next year to decide whether to introduce the Western school-year system.

If a decision on the new system is made as planned by 2016, it could be partially implemented as early as the 2017 school year.

But officials say it would not be easy to introduce the new school-year system because of huge social costs arising from any change to the present system.

The former Roh Moo-hyun administration unsuccessfully attempted to reform the school-year system as it failed to get the necessary social consensus.

"The fall-semester system has much to do with social and cultural systems," a ministry official said. "So we have to decide whether to introduce the system through an extensive process of public debate and minimize possible confusion," the official said.

As an alternative plan, the government will also consider starting a new school year earlier than the current one by removing the spring break and extending the summer vacation. (Yonhap)