The opposition of Busan National University of Education (BNUE) students has been confirmed to be serious regarding the integration of Pusan National University (PNU) and BNUE. PNU will be notified of the results of collecting opinions from BNUE next month.

BNUE recently announced that it would hold an “exchange of opinions session on the development plan of BNUE” for students, professors, and faculty members on November 30th and completely review the integration with PNU. In April last year, PNU signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with BNUE to discuss an integration plan, but there has been no progress over one and a half years. The main issue of MOU was to incorporate BNUE into a college of PNU and reorganize the education-specialized campus by moving the college of Education of PNU to the BNUE campus.

It has been confirmed that the exchange of opinions session will be held because of the severe opposition of BUNE. According to a survey of whether to integrate with PNU for 372 enrolled BNUE students conducted by the student council of BNUE in March, 76.4% of them voted for “the cancellation of MOU with PNU.” The students answered, “We are concerned about long-term integration with the College of Education (77.1%), the MOU contract was signed arbitrarily disregarding the opinions of students (76.5%), and it did not disclose the MOU signing process and related data transparently (55.7%).” Some of the alumni of BNUE even protested with pickets against integration in front of the school. Enrolled student of BNUE Kim said, “I disagree with the integration. The students around me are also dissatisfied with the integration as it is proceeding without reflecting the students’ opinions.”

The reason for the integration of PNU and BNUE was a decrease in the school-age population. According to “the 2020 Educational Basic Statistical Survey” released by the Ministry of Education and the Korea Educational Development Institute, the number of elementary school students has decreased by 600,000 over the past decade. As a result, the number of new teachers recruited decreased, and the “appointment congestion” phenomenon, which means teachers cannot be hired immediately after graduating from the University of Education and College of Education, was analyzed as a factor that requires the integration of PNU and BNUE. (reported by PNU Newspaper on April 6th, 2021)

However, even when the MOU was signed, public opinion in the school was not good. At that time, the Emergency Planning Committee of the BNUE Student Council expressed strong dissatisfaction with the hasty administrative process in a written opinion. It said, “It is arbitrary and closed decision-making through faculty meetings inside the university without reflecting students’ opinion.”

BNUE will deal with not only integration with PNU but also integration with the nearby local University of Education and maintenance of the current system in exchange of opinions session. An official from BNUE said, “Nothing has been decided officially yet, and we will gather opinions from professors and students on what direction the school will go from now on through discussions on November 30th. This meeting will not result in a final decision on whether it will be merged, and what procedures will follow will be decided later.”

In response, the Director of the Planning Team in the Office of Planning and Evaluation of PNU said, “BNUE is supposed to give notice by gathering opinions by December. PNU will also continue to think about how the two schools can develop positively after seeing the process of collecting opinions in BNUE.” The director also said regarding when the integration will proceed, “If the integration is decided, there is a clear direction for establishing an integrated teacher system, so it seems that it will proceed as soon as possible.”

Reporter Kang Ji-Won

Translated by Kwon Eun-Ji