韓国における外国人留学生受入の質向上に関する分析

―外国人留学生誘致・管理力量認証制に着目して―

抄録

  International student mobility is expanding rapidly throughout the world, and the recruitment marketplace of international students is increasingly competitive as organizations seek foreign workers who have the skills required for a knowledge-based society. However, a lack of quality control over international students causes problems such as illegal overstaying, un-adaptability, and a bad reputation of higher education of the host country overseas. Therefore, controlling the quality of recruitment of, and support for, international students by host universities is an important task.

  Korea, a non-English speaking country in Asia, is burdened with undersubscribed universities due to a sharp decline in the nation’s college-age population, much like Japan. As a consequence, it is aggressively recruiting international students to ensure a skilled workforce. Korea has achieved the recruitment of 100,000 international students in the short term, but this rapid increase has engendered problems such as illegal overstays and anti-Korean sentiment. The Korean government has introduced the International Education Quality Assurance System (IEQAS) as a quality control system for accepting inbound international students to Korean universities. Universities evaluated as excellent by the IEQAS are accredited, and universities considered poor are sanctioned. The severest sanction is that a university is disqualified by the IEQAS. Its name is officially announced as disqualified, and restrictions are placed on visas such that the university is prohibited from accepting international students. IEQAS encourages universities to consolidate their support systems for international students by offering incentives for IEQAS-accredited universities and penalizing universities that have significant problems recruiting or supporting international students.

  In this study, the effectiveness of the IEQAS introduced by the Korean government is analyzed in light of the search for ideal policies for Korean universities. First, the author describes the characteristics of the IEQAS and the background of its introduction. Second, the author analyzes changes in data from before and after the introduction of the IEQAS using quantitative data analysis. Third, the author examines reasons and details of changes through a case study approach. Finally, the author reviews the effectiveness of the IEQAS as a countermeasure to improve the quality of accepting international students, based on the results of analyses and examines conclusions.

  Quantitative data analyses indicate that the illegal residency rate has been reduced dramatically. At each university level, the nationalities of international students have diversified, and the proportion of international students with high skills in the Korean language has increased. However, the dropout rate and housing opportunity rate have not been improved sufficiently at most universities.

  The case study, which included interviews, suggests applying the IEQAS’s common national evaluation indicators to universities both in metro areas and those in rural areas, which produces conflicting results. For example, in the case of the evaluation indicator for housing opportunity, universities in rural areas improve more easily compared with universities in metro areas because the cost of real estate to build a dormitory for international students in the rural areas is lower. In contrast, the indicator concerning the dropout rate prevents universities in rural areas from being accredited as international students leave rural universities, not because the universities lack support for international students but because they are located in rural areas. As a weakness of the IEQAS, it also appears that no funds for universities to build a support system for international students have been stipulated by the (View PDF for the rest of the abstract.)