By Na Jeong-ju
Staff Reporter


Education Minister Ahn Byung-young speaks during a news conference at the government building in central Seoul, Thursday. / Korea Times

Education Minister Ahn Byung-young on Thursday urged universities, parents and teachers to keep cool-headed over the recent row concerning biased admission for high school graduates at some private universities, saying he would form a tri-partite committee to solve remaining educational problems.

In a statement, Ahn said the biggest barrier for normalization of school education is a lack of confidence among parents, teachers and universities.

``The government will try to narrow the disparity among high schools in different regions. A tri-partite committee, where high schools, universities and parents will participate and pool wisdom, can be a solution to solving the problem,’’ Ahn said.

Ahn’s remarks are a gesture to cool off the growing dispute over the discriminative standard some private universities applied when it selected applicants this year. Skepticism has been growing however among parties involved over the ability of the Roh government to handle the dispute.

Teachers’ groups demanded an apology from the government for all the fuss, saying it is trying to avoid responsibility.

In the morning, 10 universities agreed to reveal cases where high schools manipulated school records for some students to increase their chances of entering good universities, as an action to justify their discriminative policy. Ahn however said such a menace cannot be an excuse for the biased admission, saying universities should act on their social responsibilities and keep in mind the constitutional virtue of giving all an equal educational opportunity.

The minister made it clear again that the government cannot condone the discriminative admission policy in universities and will not respond to calls to allow universities to conduct self-developed tests to select applicants.

He also said he wouldn’t listen to a request by universities to admit students while depending on their parents’ financial and educational contribution to the universities, which universities have demanded to improve financial conditions.

Universities have called on the government to give more autonomy to the process of selecting students, saying the current selection system has too many problems.

The issue has sparked a controversy over the country’s deep-rooted educational predicament as teachers’ groups and political parties have been keenly divided.

The Korean Federation of Teachers’ Associations urged the government to revise the current measurement system for high school graduates.

``Universities have the right to select students by their own standards. The government should respect it,’’ the association said.

The Korea Educational Workers’ Union, however, called on the government to take harsh disciplinary action against universities involved for their secret policy to favor certain high schools for admission.

On Wednesday, parents’ groups said they had begun collecting complaints from students and parents for a lawsuit against the universities that were found to have adopted the biased system.

jj@koreatimes.co.kr