Dr. Young Shik Kim (Secretary General in KCUE) argued, at the summer regular general meeting for the deans of academic affairs, that it is urgent to enhance the competitiveness of Korean universities.

The meeting was held at the Seogwipo KAL hotel in Jeju on July 11. To this end, Dr. Kim asked universities to  introduce competing  system, evaluation system and specialization program via 'Selection and Focus'.

Dr. Kim stressed that quick reformation of education system is very important now that competitiveness of a nation depends on competitiveness of a university.

In addition, he illustrated several cases of educational reformation in foreign countries in detail and stressed the need of quick preparation.

Dr. Kim mentioned that Bill Gates started a project named  'Strong American Schools' and that British prime minister Brown gave up  standardized education and declared an expansion of the educational budget up to 10 %.  He added that we needed to pay keen attention to the reports by OECD that China and India, which are competing with Korea, have been developing into a strong power in the field of education in a short period of time.

Dr. Kim also showed concerns about decline of students caused by low birth rate and an aging society. He said, "This condition will remain the same until 2010, but the number of students will drop drastically after that."

He indicated that more and more students would go abroad to study, adding that the total number of students who study in USA already amounts to 100,000. He insisted, under these circumstances, that we should start international exchanges by going through restructuring and building a system on an international standard.

According to Dr. Kim, universities from UK, Germany and France, which are well-informed of excellence of Korean students and Korea's developed IT technology,  expressed their wish to KCUE that they wanted to exchange students with Korean universities.

He explained that two things are crucial for international exchanges: one is making mutual agreement to ensure the quality education, and the other is strengthening the competitiveness to satisfy accreditation system.

He suggested the followings; ▲ to specialize through 'Selecting and Focusing' ▲ to establish professor evaluation system and incentive system ▲ to  guarantee universities' autonomy  and to secure finance ▲ to promote interdisciplinary research ▲ to internationalize university education. Dr. Kim said, "Everyone knows the importance of strengthening of competitiveness.

What matters, however, is action." Especially, he argued that the direct election system for university president should be amended so as to reinforce presidents' leadership.