名古屋高等教育研究 第 18 号 （2018）

The Evaluation of Higher Education
Restructuring in Korea: Problems and
Suggestions for Improvement
BYUN Hoseung*＜Abstract＞
The purpose of this article is to understand the evaluation of the
1st period of Korean higher education structural reform that
occurred during 2014-2016 in terms of problems and suggestions for
improvement. To achieve the goal, the author analyzed 24 articles
through content analysis method. In terms of problems, evaluation
criteria, polarization of universities, violation of autonomy, purpose ofevaluation, and decline of academic discipline were frequently
mentioned. For suggestions for improvement, customization andautonomy of restructuring, university system reform, financial
support, legislation, enforce retirement of HEIs, and provide
necessary data were on the top list. The number of categories forproblems was greater than for suggestions for improvement with themost frequently mentioned being: ‘customization and autonomy ofrestructuring,’ ‘university system reform’ and ‘financial support.’
These reflect the rigid reform process and propose macro approachfor reform while urging enhancement of public benefits by increasing
the role of public and national universities. Minor significance wasgiven to ‘market driven policy’ because of its potential forcontroversy.

Professor, Department of Education, Chungbuk National University, Korea(Visiting Professor, Center for the Studies of Higher Education, Nagoya
University)223

1．Introduction
Globalization and the decrease in the birth rate are changing thelandscape of higher education around the world (British Council 2012). Asin other industrialized countries, reforming higher education has been a
hot topic in Korea for some time. Of even stronger importance is how theterm “structural reform” is now being used instead of the term
“downsizing.”
It is a known fact that higher education has played a huge role in theeconomic development of Korea. As a result, quantitative growth has been
the norm for higher education in recent history. In 1995, the first
directly-elected president, Kim Young-Sam, implemented his policy of
deregulating higher education. This included the abolition of the quota
systemandchangedtheprevious

permission-based

university

establishment policy to a minimum condition-based policy. This resulted ina rapid increase in the number of higher education institutions as well as in
new forms of educational institutions (Kwon 2012). Student quotas in thecapital area were still restricted, however, the number of university
students has increased from 498,250 in 1995 to 656,783 in 2002.
The Korean government’s response to the higher education problem
was to reduce the freshmen student quotas and enhance the quality ofeducation by evaluating and connecting government financial projects toguide the restructuring process. This plan has already been implemented
and the results of the first stage (2014-2016) evaluation have beenannounced.
So far there have surfaced many arguments concerning the Korean HEI
restructuring process but there has not been much clarification of themany issues raised nor about any of the suggestion solutions. This study
hopes to clarify these issues and their suggested solutions as they were
portrayed in various academic journals.
Thus, the primary research questions for this paper are two-fold: What
are the main problems in Korea’s higher education restructuring? What
are the best suggestions for improving higher education structuralreform?

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The Evaluation of Higher Education Restructuring in Korea

2．Background
2.1

History of Higher Education Reforms

Higher education reform can be traced back to 2000 when the Korean
government started to find ways to streamline similar departments amongthenational

universities.

Consecutively,‘PlansforStrengthening

University Competitiveness (2003)’ and ‘Plans for University Structural
Reform(2004)’

wereannounced

toincludeprivateuniversities.

Improvements in educational conditions and accounting system weresuggestedfornational

universities

and

for

privateuniversities,

improvements in educational conditions, amendment of dissolution,
merger and retirement, and tightened requirements for university
establishment were implemented.
The strategies used by the government were to link university
evaluation with financial support to guide structural reform. For example,
in 2004, national universities were to reduce the number of freshmen
students by more than 10% by 2007, and 15% by 2009. Private universities
were not allowed to participate in any national financial support projects if
the 10% reduction was not met and if the procurement rate of full-time
faculty was lower than the standard by 2009, a reduction in student quota
was to be enforced. The Brain Korea 21 (BK21) project, administered from1999-2005, was designed to support higher education workforce training
by investing 1.4 trillion Won compared to the 2 trillion Won invested in
BK21-2 (2006-2012). BK21 Plus is now in progress. In applying for BK21 one
must meet the criteria for full-time faculty procurement rate, facultyevaluation, and achieve reform in the academic affairs system.
Plans for Specialization of Universities (2005) were announced topromote universities to select areas in which to invest; another strategy toboost structural reform. The University Information Disclosure System(2007) was introduced to open the educational environment to the public
and to university management. The Korean government also urged
universities to merge with one another. From 2005-2010, 18 national
universities and 2 public universities were merged into a total 10.
Compared to 2004, a reduction of a total of 8,768 students and 103

225

undergraduate departments was achieved. In terms of private universities,
14 universities and colleges were merged into a total of 7, reducing
enrollment to a total of 9,807 students (Yoo 2011).
2.2

National Scholarship and Restructuring

After soaring tuition fees became a social issue, the government
regulated tuition fee increase. The university tuition fee increase from2006 was much higher than the inflation rate (Table 1). From 2009, thegovernment urged the universities, via a university presidents’ roundtable
meeting, to stop the rapid increase in tuition fees.
Table 1

Four-year University Tuition Increase (Ministry of Education 2011)(Unit: 1,000 Won)

Year
2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

PublicPrivateTuition

3,423

6,473

Increase rate

9.90%

6.70%

Tuition

3,775

6,893

Increase rate

10.30%

6.50%

Tuition

4,169

7,380

Increase rate

8.70%

6.70%

Tuition

4,169

7,410

Increase rate

0.50%

0.50%

Tuition

4,247

7,519

Increase rate

2.40%

1.60%

Tuition

4,291

7,691

Increase rate

1.00%

2.30%

Inflation
2.20%

2.50%

4.70%

2.80%

2.90%

4.40%

Furthermore, Higher Education Laws were amended to control tuition
fees. Clause 11, introduced in 2011, regulates the maximum increase of the
HEIs tuition rate. The increase cannot be more than 1.5 times the previous
3 years’ consumer price increase. In 2013, yearly tuition for four-year

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The Evaluation of Higher Education Restructuring in Korea

universities was 6,678,000 Won, which was 31,000 Won (0.46%) lower thanthe previous year (Korea Statistics 2013).
From 2012, the National Scholarship has been awarded to students. The
so called ‘half-price tuition fee’ motto became a symbol of government
policy. Currently, 675,000-3,900,000 Won worth of scholarships has been
awarded to decile 3 to 8 students, with a maximum of 5,200,000 Won
awarded to decile 2 and below students (Korea Student Aid Foundation
2017).
In the awarding of the national scholarship, starting from 2012, theUniversity

Restructuring

Committee

andTuition

Loan

SystemDeliberation Committee selected the bottom 15% of universities as the socalled ‘Government Financial Support Restricted Universities and Tuition
Loan Restricted Universities’ (Ministry of Education 2011). Employment
rate, student recruitment rate, full-time faculty procurement rate,
educational restitution rate, academic management and curriculum,
scholarship rate, reduction of tuition burden, and the corporation index
were used as evaluation criteria. In addition, new industry cooperation
with vocational colleges was introduced.
Thebottom15%

wasclassified

as‘financial-support-restricted

university,’ ‘tuition-loan restricted university,’ and ‘insolvent university.’
Being included in any category was considered a very real threat to theuniversity because its reputation in the community would be tainted
especially in a country where a hierarchical structure in higher education
exists. Any student discouragement would be like having salt rubbed into
a wound. Students and parents, who are cautious shoppers, will also avoid
such a university resulting in much difficulty for the university’s
recruiting of new students.
In 2012, among the 346 HEIs that were evaluated, 43 were selected as‘financial-support-restricted universities (28 four-year universities and 15
vocational colleges).’ Eleven were Seoul Metropolitan area HEIs and 32
were from regional HEIs.

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2.3

Student Quota Reduction

The number of Korean higher education institutions has more thandoubled between 1970 to 2008, from 168 to 348, and the percentage of highschool graduates enrolling in higher education institutions reached 83.8%
in 2008 (Yoem 2013). Even as late as 2015 it has continued to increase(Table 2).
Table 2

Number of Higher Education Institutions (Ministry of Education 2016)

Classification

2000

2005

2010

2014

2015

2016

University

161

173

179

189

189

189

Junior College

158

158

145

139

138

138

Graduate School College

17

34

40

44

47

46

Others

36

54

47

61

59

59

Total

372

419

411

433

433

432

Even though there have been continuous government efforts at
restructuring higher education, a new, bold plan came out in January 2014.
The Korean government announced their major higher education reform
plan named, ‘The University Structural Reform Plan for the Enhancementof University Educational Quality and to Prepare for Sharp Decrease in
School Age Population.’ Government data projects that the supply ofstudents for higher education in 2013 is about 560,000, in 2017 it will be
520,000, in 2020 it will be 470,000, and in 2023 it will be about 400,000. Thus,
drastic measures are required to stem this continual decrease.
Three basic directions were laid out.
First, all universities, except for the excellent-rated, will have theirstudent quotas differentially reduced.
Second, a new university evaluation system regarding specialization andquality of education will be introduced.
Third, legal and institutional arrangements for continuous andsystematic structural reform will be established.
The Government has calculated that without a reduction in the new

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The Evaluation of Higher Education Restructuring in Korea

freshmen quota, there will be growing enrollment shortfalls, 38,300 in 2017,88,200 in 2020, 160,800 in 2023, and 162,900 in 2026.
There are three features of evaluation for structural reform of
university. First, both quantitative and qualitative criteria were used tocomprehensively assess HEI. Second, capital and regional areas, national,
public, and private HEIs, and 4-year and 2-year HEIs were considered in
the evaluation. Third, absolute criteria were introduced in quantitative
criteria and 3-years of continuous efforts of HEIs were assessed.
The plan is to reduce the 160,000 university student quota by 2023,
based on the results of 3 periods of evaluation. In every period, alluniversities will be included in the evaluation and all those, except for the
excellent-rated group, will have their student quotas differentially reduced.
If universities voluntarily reduce their quotas, it will be later calculated
toward their structural reform reduction. The Four-year universities and2-year Junior colleges’ reduction will be based on their current proportion
63:37 (universities 25,300, colleges 14,700).
Universities focused on educating religious leaders, the arts andphysical related departments, and those who are less than 2 years after
being merged with other universities, were allowed to be exempt from
evaluation when requested. However, they would then incur restrictions inparticipating in other government support projects.
Table 3

Goals for University Student Admission Quota Reduction

Evaluated Period

Period 1(2014-2016)

Period 2(2017-2019)

Period 3(2020-2022)

Total Reduced
Students

Reduction Goal

40,00050,00070,000160,000

Reduction Period

2015-20172018-20202021-2023

Absolute evaluation is implemented at all universities and is rated in 5
grades based on the results. All the universities’ student quotas, except for
those excellent-rated, shall be reduced differentially based on the results.

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

Excellent-rated universities will have voluntary reduction and areallowed to participate in government projects.

Good-rated universities shall have partial quota reduction and areallowed to participate in government projects.

Fair-rated shall have average quota reduction and are allowed toparticipate in government projects.



Poor-rated shall have more than average quota reduction, be
prohibited from government projects and national scholarship aid,and subject to partial student loan restriction.



Excessively-poor-rated universities shall have high quota reduction,
be prohibited from government projects and national scholarship aid,and subject to full student loan restriction. Those who are rated as
excessively-poor for two consecutive times will be retired.

HEIs were evaluated in two stages. The evaluation was conducted inabsolute criteria base. In the first stage, universities were categorized into
group 1 and 2. Group 1 was graded as A, B, and C. Group 2 was graded as
D and E. However, 10% of group 2 had the possibility to be upgraded togroup 1 when the evaluation result was good.
Sixty-six HEIs (32 four-year universities and 34 vocational colleges) were
below average (D and E). That amounts to 19.6% of 4-year universities, and25.2% of vocational colleges.
Table 4

Results of 1st Period HEI Evaluation

Rate

A

B

C

D

E

Separate
MeasureExcluded
Schools

Universities

34

56

36

26

6

5

29

Colleges

14

26

58

27

7

3

2

The following reduction was ‘advised’ to the corresponding schools due
to pending law in the National Assembly since 2014. Altogether, the 5,439
freshmen student quota is expected to be reduced by 2018.

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The Evaluation of Higher Education Restructuring in Korea
Table 5Advised Freshmen Reduction Rate in 1st Period Evaluation

Grade

Reduction
Rates

2.4

A

Universities
Colleges

Voluntary
Reduction

B

C

D

E

Excluded
Schools

4%

7%

10%

15%

7%

3%

5%

7%

10%

5%

Legal and Institutional Arrangements

The University Structural Reform Committee (USRC) deliberates theprimaryplan,evaluationplan,evaluation

criteria,

ratings,

andimplementation. The committee members are composed of 20 people fromvarious professional disciplines: law, accounting, industry, economy, andeducation. Evaluators are composed of 400-500 people from the sectors ofindustry and education.
Bills introduced for the university structural reform, however, were notpassed due to disagreements and the political situation. Some of the issues
were rigid and uniform structural reform, enforcement of quota reduction,and the articles that allowed the founders of private foundations to disposeof school property.
2.5

Results of 1st Period Evaluation

In August of 2015, the Ministry of Education (MOE) announced theresults of the first period evaluation (Ministry of Education 2015).

For a

period of 5 months, 298 HEIs (163 four-year universities and 135 two-year
vocational colleges) were comprehensively evaluated for their efforts
during the years 2012 through 2015.
University evaluation criteria included 18 items: in the first stage, 6quantitative, 4 qualitative, and 2 mixed indices. Stage 2 had 6 qualitative
indices. Vocational colleges had 6 quantitative, 8 qualitative, and 2 mixed
indices, with 16 in total. The use of the qualitative indices was to evaluatethe ‘efforts’ each college and university put in during the evaluation period.

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Table 6First-stage Evaluation Criteria for 4-year Universities

Category (60)

Evaluation Criteria

Full-time faculty procurement rate (8) (National/Private separate)
Educational
Environment School building procurement rate (5)(18)
Educational restitution rate (5) (National/Private separate)
Academic
Course management (8)Management
Student evaluation (4)(12)
Support for student learning competency (5)Student
Support(15)

Career & psychological counselling (3)Scholarship (5)Employment & start-up assistance (2)Educational
Outcome(15)

Qualitative

Student recruitment rate (8) (Capital/provinces separate)
Employment rate (5) (Regions separate)
Management of education consumer satisfaction (2)criteria

included‘coursemanagement’(8

points),‘management of education consumer satisfaction’ (2 points), ‘support for
student learning competency’ (5 points), and ‘career & psychologicalcounselling’ (3 points); areas covered by government projects andconsidered key factors in the evaluation. Qualitative criteria that are‘course management’ (8 points), ‘management of education consumer
satisfaction’ (2 points), ‘support for student learning competency’ (5 points),and ‘career & psychological counselling’ (3 points) were areas covered bygovernment projects and were considered key factors in evaluation.

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The Evaluation of Higher Education Restructuring in Korea
Table 7

Second-stage Evaluation Criteria for 4-year Universities

Category (40)

Evaluation Criteria

Appropriateness of medium & long-term development plan (5)Medium & longterm development
Connection between medium & long-term development plan andplan (10)undergraduate & quota adjustment (5)Liberal education curriculum (5)Curriculum (20)Major education curriculum (5)Improvement of curriculum /and teaching (10)Specialization (10) Establishment, implementation, and output of specialization plan

3．Research Methodology
In order to identify what the key concerns of government HEI
restructuring are, ‘content analysis’ was used (Holsti 1969). The researcher
gathered academic papers from three major research databases: DBPia,
E-articles, and Kyobo Scholar. Keyword search using ‘university structuralreform,’ in Korean, was used for articles published from January, 2014
through August, 2017.
The following criteria were used in screening appropriate journals:
1)

Articles analyzing current Korean government HEI restructuringthat started in 2014.

2)

Academic journal papers, conferences proceedings, academic
magazine articles.

3)

Printed materials of statements, debates, and hearings were
excluded.

4)

Related articles that did not provide the author’s opinion on‘problems’ or ‘suggestions’ were excluded (Objective description orsole referencing of other’s opinion was excluded).

5)Overlapping articles were omitted.

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Using keyword searching, 25, 45, and 48 articles were found respectively
among the databases. Through a screening process a total of 24 articles
were selected to be analyzed.
In content analysis, categorization is considered a critical issue in the
success of the analysis (Berelson 1952). Categories are often developed in atrial-and-error process and the familiarity with the data in developing valid
and reliable categories is crucial (Holsti 1969). In developing the categories,
the researcher reads through the articles consciously paying attention tocommonly claimed problems and suggestions for the improvement of therestructuring process. In this study, ‘problems’ and ‘suggestions’ about the
restructuring forms the categories.
The first step for the analysis was summarizing the results. While
reading the articles, the researcher wrote down the key arguments of thearticles. Key arguments were selected in terms of ‘problems’ and‘suggestions’ for the HEI restructuring. For example, ‘unfairness ofevaluation,’ ‘lack of discrimination of criteria,’ ‘lack of financial support,’
and etc. were turned into categories. Referencing of other journals alone
was not considered as an argument or opinion. When a key ‘opinion,’ ‘claim,’or ‘assertion’ was found, it was coded as ‘1 appearance.’ Multiple
appearances of a category in one article were coded once. After the firstround of coding, the second round of coding was done by combining similaror overlapping categories and clarifying the categories. Categories weredeveloped based on texts used by the original authors.

4．Results
The number of initial categories in the first round of coding was 30 for‘problems,’ 23 for ‘suggestions for improvement.’ In the second round, thecategories were 27 and 16, respectively.
4.1

Problems in Reform

The most frequently mentioned problems of HEI restructuring were‘evaluation criteria’ and ‘polarization of universities.’ These appeared in
one-half of the total articles. ‘Evaluation’ was one of the most frequently

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The Evaluation of Higher Education Restructuring in Korea

mentioned areas. ‘Frequencies in evaluation criteria’ (12), ‘purpose ofevaluation’ (8), ‘unjust evaluation’ (8), and ‘uniform evaluation’ (5) ranked
high on the list. These show that the evaluation system had the mostcomplaints in the structural reform of HEI. The evaluation criteria often
were criticized for their reliability and validity. They overlap with
university certification evaluation criteria thus making it redundant (Kimand Oh 2014). Employment rate and student recruitment rate areconsidered to be absurd because they do not consider the surroundings ofwhere the HEIs are located, and proportion in evaluation is too much (Kim
2015). The contradiction of purpose and means of the evaluation werebrought up in a number of articles, questioning the integrity of thestructural reform (Kang 2015, Park and Koh 2016, Ban 2016a). Unjust
evaluation also had high frequency meaning that the evaluation was notfair, inconsistent, and sometimes involved politics. Though it was not oneof the criteria, ‘withdrawal from the direct election of university president’
was known as an option in order to receive a good evaluation and thiseventually affected the result (Kang 2015). Uniform evaluation showed thatthe evaluation process was not planned meticulously. Shin (2016) argues
that specialization was emphasized and applying uniform criteria has ahigh possibility of producing isomorphic institutions across the nation.
‘Polarization of universities’ (12) also received one of the most frequent
results. It is a concern that the structural reform of HEIs will aggravate
the current ranking system of universities and widen the gap between
capital area universities versus local universities.
‘Violation of autonomy’ (11) indicates that the HEI community wascoerced into restructuring and that the government controlled the total
restructuring process. The Ministry of Education (MOE) could wield
power to retire a university (Park 2014) while universities could only
decrease the number of students (Ban 2015). The control of HEIs bybureaucrats was one topic that raised the most criticism about structuralreform (Hur 2016).
‘Decline of academic discipline’ (9) was third on the list. Even though
universities were free to reduce the number of their students, so called“unpopular” departments such as arts, sports and foundational discipline

235

will eventually be streamlined (Kim 2015) either because they are costly,
low-profit departments (Park 2014) or because they have low employment
rates (Park 2015).
‘Decrease in competiveness’ (8) is conspicuous as many think thegovernments structural reform will not contribute to enhancing thecompetiveness of the institutions (Park 2014) or even worse, degrade theoverall quality of education (Ji 2014, Ban 2015, Hur 2016).
‘Lack of communication’ (7) indicates that the process of reform did nothave an appropriate discussion and feedback system. An and Lee (2015)
see the process as a government driven power structure without any
mutual understanding or communication. Roh (2016) argued that although
the government held numerous public hearings and discussions, they were
no more than instruments in hiding repressive measures.
‘Negative approach’ (5) is about the characteristic of reform that
requires the merger and retirement of HEIs and the reduction of students
without any clear proof of quality enhancement (Ban 2015). ‘Negative
approach’ has a high possibility of being used as a mechanism for control
rather than as motivation (Ban 2016a) and punishment-based reform willfurther deteriorate the educational environment (Yoon 2017).
‘Lack of foundation’ (5) has multiple aspects. It is a question about
whether the government’s assumption is based on solid labor market
projections, philosophy, or a long-term plan (Ban 2015, Shin 2016, Choi andLee 2017).
‘Legislation required’ (5) points out that the government’s reform is not
yet supported by law and has no real ground for enforcement. Due to the
opposition parties’ disagreement with the hasty drive and controversy
clauses, such as allowing owners of school corporations to dispose of theschool property on their own, the bill is not yet approved.
‘Violation of rights’ (4) is concerned with human, teaching, and learning
rights. Reform creates contract professors and workers as they arecounted as full-time faculty or workers. Mergers and the reduction ofschools and student quotas inevitably destabilize jobs and violate students’rights to learn (Park 2015, Hur 2016, Roh 2016).

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The Evaluation of Higher Education Restructuring in Korea

The next most frequent topics were: ‘favoritism to school corporations’(3) which is closely related to legislation, ‘no unemployment measures’ (2),‘decrease of revenues’ (2), and ‘conflicts among members’ (2) followed. ‘Nofinancial support,’ ‘decrease in education’ and ‘research capability,’‘neo-liberalism,’ ‘collapse of democratic governance,’ ‘passive activities offaculty members,’ ‘private school nepotism,’ ‘competition & work
environmental degradation,’ and ‘support of sloppy HEIs to revive’ werealso mentioned.
Table 8Frequencies for Problems

Rank

ProblemFrequency

1

Evaluation criteria

13

2

Polarization of universities

123

Violation of autonomy

11

4

Purpose of evaluation

10

5Decline of academic discipline

96

Decrease in competiveness8

7

Unjust evaluation

8

8

Lack of communication

7

9

Negative approach

510Lack of foundation

5

11

Legislation required

5

12

Uniform evaluation

5

13

Violation of rights

4

14

Favoritism to school corporation

3

15

Qualitative evaluation

2

16

No unemployment measures2

17

Decrease of revenues

2

18

Conflicts among members

2

19

No financial support, decrease in education &research, neo-liberalism, collapse of democratic
governance, passive activities of faculty members,
private school nepotism, competition & work
environmental degradation, support of sloppy HEIs

1

237

4.2

Suggestions for Improvement‘Customization and autonomy of restructuring’ (12) was most mentioned.
Its main aim is to adjust the reduction based on the regional settings or anindividual HEIs circumstances (Kang 2014), and by the plans of HEIs (Park2014). ‘Differentiating private and public universities in reduction rates’
was also suggested (Kim and Oh 2014, Lee 2014). The fact that HEIs havedifferent characteristics of their own and are dispersed across different
regions require differentiated approaches in reform. Autonomy is, after all,about less oppressive measures.
‘University system reform’ (9) was the next hot topic. Kang (2014)
proposes to unite all national universities into one university, except for
Seoul National University. Ji (2014) and Park (2014) emphasize the role ofnational universities in enhancing public benefits. Kim (2015), Ban (2015),
and Ban (2016b) support the introduction of the national university
association system. Private universities could also be selectively accepted
into this system and the proportion of national and public universities
would be increased (Yoon 2017).
‘Financial support’ (8) calls for the increased role of government inhigher education. This category could be combined with ‘university
system reform.’‘Legislation’ (5) highlights the lack of legislative precondition and the
new law to support development of HEI systems was also suggested byBan (2016b).
‘Enforce retirement of HEIs’ (4) shows the spirit of the reform measurethat shuts down sloppy and uncompetitive HEIs being the prerequisite forsuccessful reform. This is one of the purposes the government claimed toenhance the competiveness of higher education. ‘Provide necessary data’(4) links to the justifiability of the drive. The government should base thereform on solid data and logic (Park 2015, Ban 2015). ‘Communication andagreement’ (4) and ‘protect minor disciplines’ (4) were frequent topics thatreflect other problems of the reform.
‘Improve evaluation criteria’ (3), ‘improve system and quality’ (3),‘long-term plan’ (3), and ‘improve and develop evaluation system’ (2) were
the next most frequent alternatives.

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The Evaluation of Higher Education Restructuring in Korea‘Espousing market driven policy’ (2) was supported by two authors
affiliated with capital area private universities. Their opinion was that
regulation and control of the government will do harm to thecompetiveness of HEIs and the reduction of students at popular
universities is absurd (Lee 2014, Choi Kang and Lee 2017).
Finally,‘systemize

goals,’‘tailored

consulting,’‘enhance

andcompetitiveness’ were also suggested.
Table 9Rank

Frequencies for Suggestions for Improvement
Suggestions for Improvement

Frequency

1

Customization & autonomy of restructuring

122

University system reform

93

Financial support

8

4

Legislation

5

5

Enforce retirement of HEIs

4

6

Provide necessary data

4

7

Communication & agreement

48

Protect minor disciplines

4

9

Improve evaluation criteria

3

10

Improve system & quality

311Long-term plan3

12

Improve & develop evaluation system

213Market driven policy
Systemize goals, tailored consulting, enhancecompetitiveness

2

14

1

5．Discussion
Using the content analysis method to analyze research papers regarding
HEI structural reform, the following remains to be discussed.
First, numbers of categories for ‘problems’ (27) were greater than‘suggestions for improvement’ (16) showing the magnitude of negative
aspects of structural reform. It also implies that a solution could be related
to multiple problems. What is interesting is that the ranking in the lists for239

‘problems’ and ‘solutions’ were not necessarily matched. For example,‘evaluation criteria’ (13) was the number one problem. However, it ranked
9th on the ‘suggestions for improvement’ list.
Second, in ‘problems,’ one of the most frequently mentioned problematic
areas was evaluation. Many categories such as ‘evaluation criteria,’‘purpose of evaluation,’ ‘unjust evaluation,’ and ‘uniform evaluation’ were
frequently mentioned. These show that ‘current evaluation system’
receives the most complaints and needs to be revised in the next stage ofstructural reform.
Third, ‘polarization of universities’ was also considered one of the worst
problems. Even though the government emphasized that the evaluation
system was designed to reflect the gap between location (capital, regions),
type of foundation (national, public, private), and length of degree (2-year,
4-year), concerns that the drive will worsen the situation were deep.
‘Violation of autonomy’ was also at the top of the list revealing HEI
communities’ resistant sentiment toward the drive. Roh (2016) criticizes
harshly that many public hearings and discussions were planted to
disguise the oppressive bureaucratic power. ‘Declining of unpopulardiscipline’ was considered a main threat to the community. Next in line
was ‘decrease in competiveness’ that questions the effect of reform. ‘Lackof communication,’ ‘negative approach,’ ‘lack of foundation,’ and ‘legislation
required,’ were the next frequent categories that characterize the reform.
‘Frequencies of violation of human and learning rights,’ ‘collapse of
democratic governance’, ‘passive activities of faculty members,’ and‘competition and work environmental degradation’ were low, however,revealing the change in university settings.
Fourth, at the top of the suggestions for improvement list were‘customization & autonomy of restructuring,’ ‘university system reform,’and ‘financial support.’ These reflect the rigid reform process and propose
a macro approach rather than a piecemeal solution for the reform. Many
reminded the low ratio of public or national HEIs and eventually urged
enhancement of public benefits by increasing the role of public andnational universities (Kim and Oh 2014, Park 2014, Kim 2015, Ban 2015).

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The Evaluation of Higher Education Restructuring in Korea

Sixth, espousing market driven policy had a minor voice, however,counter to the majority of opinions, especially using employment rate andstudent recruitment rate (Lee 2014, Choi Kang and Lee 2017). Thoughminor, this has potential for controversy in reform policy.

6．Conclusion
Frequency itself cannot be wholly interpreted as importance or urgency.
However, certain value could be placed on frequency and could thus beinterpreted as meaningful since authors with limited space would write
only on selected ‘worthwhile’ topics about the structural reform. It is also
advised that the results of a content analysis are to be used with otherdata to better understand the phenomena.
The lists of topics show ranges of concerns and suggestions forstructural reform. Other than evaluation itself, voices on autonomy,competitiveness, and urging the systemic change in the landscape ofhigher education were conspicuous. Since Korean higher education has
always been under strong central government power (Park Nam 2015),
policy to truly enhance autonomy and competitiveness of HEIs is
necessary.
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名古屋高等教育研究 第 18 号 （2018）

韓国高等教育改革の評価−問題の所在と改善への提案−
ホスン
＜要

ビョン*

旨＞

本稿の目的は、2014 年から 2016 年を対象に、韓国高等教育の第 1期構造改革を批判的に検討することである。本稿では質的研究法の 1
つである内容分析を用いて、24 の関連文献を分析した。その結果、設定される評価基準の信頼性や妥当性、大都市への大学の一極集中、政府主導の学内構造改革、不人気学問分野の淘汰が、高い頻度で言及されていた。また、改善への示唆として、組織再編における個別事情の配慮と自律性の確保、財政支援、高等教育支援の法的根拠整備、質の低い高等教育機関の閉鎖、政府からの改革に必要なデータの提供が指摘されていた。ただし、言及の絶対数では、改善への示唆よりも問題点の指摘の方が多く言及されていた。この傾向は、国公立大学の役割強化による公的なメリットを強調しながらも、硬直的な改革プロセスと全学的な改革へ過度に焦点化された現状を反映しているものと考えられる。市場化政策については議論の余地があるために、必ずしも多く言及されていなかった。

韓国 忠北大学教育学部・教授
名古屋大学高等教育研究センター・客員教授

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