Yeungnam University 52, Seoul National University 11, Kyungpook National University 4 
Shows the level of global education environment
[2008-9-18]


 Yeungnam University (president Tong-Ki Woo) has the most foreigner instructors in the region and is 11th in the nation. This is considerably meaningful in the fact that it acts as an index for the level of ''global education environment''.

 According to the University News Network on the 16th, Assemblyman Cho Jeon-hyeok (Grand National Party), member of the Education, Science and Technology Council after analyzed MEST National Assembly inspection and results showed that Hongik University had the most foreign faculty with 177 from a total of 122 4-year national, public and private universities with over 100 professors as of April 1, 2008. Next was Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (129), Korea University (109), Hanyang University (105) and Yensei University (88). Excluding Dongseo University (60) and Pusan University of Foreign Studies (59), the top 10 were all in the Seoul area.

 Yeungnam University has 52 foreign language professors making it 11th in the nation and 1st in the region. Meanwhile, Seoul National University had only 11 foreign professors ranking it 60th in the nation, while other major universities in the Seoul area such as Seogang University (8), Ewha Woman''s University(49) and Chungang University (38) all had less foreign professors than Yeungnam University. Kyungpook National University only had 4 foreign professors placing it 89th and Kyungil University had 33 placing it 27th in the nation.

 Results of this analysis showed that the average ratio of foreign professors in domestic universities to be at 4.7%. There were 17 universities of the 122 examined that had no foreign professors, while national and public universities relatively lacked foreign faculty compared to private universities.

 When asked about these results, Bae Cheol-ho (47, school of Mechanical Engineering), planning manager at Yeungnam University, stated "It has already been a long time since global education has been a hot issue in colleges. However, we should take another look at whether the colleges have established a global education environment." He also added, "procuring foreign professors can prevent our talented students from going abroad and attract students from other countries such as in Southeast Asia, making it very important for colleges to increase their competitiveness."


<Chart 1> Number of foreign professors in 4-year colleges in Korea