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A school child and her mother at Incheon International Airport get ready to leave for overseas English language training. Should overseas schools and universities be able to open branches in the free economic zones of Busan, Incheon and Gwangyang, the number of children studying abroad is tipped to decline. /Chosun Ilbo DB
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A bill to allow the establishment of overseas schools in Korea¡¯s free economic zones, delayed due to opposition from ruling party lawmakers, looks set to pass in February's extraordinary assembly.
The government presented the bill in June, but ruling Uri Party lawmakers in the National Assembly's Education Committee opposed it on the grounds that it could threaten public education in Korea. But on Monday the ruling party leadership accepted government requests to pass the bill after negotiations between high-level party and government officials. Most opposition Grand National Party lawmakers support the bill.
If the bill is passed, overseas schools and universities will be able to open branches in Busan, Incheon and Gwangyang, which have been designated free economic zones. Koreans could enroll in such school regardless of where they live, and as long as they complete the required subjects, their school records would be treated on a par with those of graduates of local institutes. In the case of Jeju Island, only overseas universities would be permitted to set up shop.
Companies facilitating overseas study forecast that if Koreans were allowed to send their children to overseas schools based here, it would reduce the exodus of children accompanied by their mothers for study abroad, and with it the number of lone fathers they leave.
IAE Edunet President Kim Ok-jung said if mothers go abroad with their children, fathers must pay the cost not for just two persons, but for three or four. If children are allowed to enroll in foreign schools in Korea, the economic burden for fathers who remain behind will decline, as will the danger of family breakup, he said.
Kwon Hyeon-jin, the head of the culture exchange team of EduChosun, said that annual tuition fees of overseas schools established in the Songdo Special Economic Zone were expected to range between W18 million and W20 million (US$17,480-19,420) a year -- cheaper than the W30-40 million it costs to send children abroad. He said it was likely that many of the children now in Australia, New Zealand, China, Singapore and Malaysia would return to attend foreign schools at home should world-class overseas schools establish themselves here.
(Hwang Seong-hye, coby0729@chosun.com )
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