KOREAN NET

“Kawk Bu-mo, Vice President of International Affairs at Korea International University in Fergana (KIUF), which is implementing its first dual degree system between Uzbekistan and Korea.”

Korea International University in Fergana (KIUF) is a special college in Uzbekistan where around 50 Korean professors teach with a Korean curriculum. Therefore, it can be said that the school is planting the Korean university education system into the soil of Uzbekistan. We met with Vice President Kawk Bu-mo, who is the most enthusiastic in spreading Korean culture in this university.

Q1. Is there a special reason as to why you came to this school?
It was a school that was taking its first step in Uzbekistan, and I saw potential in this school. That’s why I came here. I taught in several universities in Europe, and I thought the experience could help me contribute to the development of higher education in Uzbekistan, which is an area that Korean universities have started to explore.

Q2. You said you’ve been in countries other than Uzbekistan. There must be a lot of differences depending on the country you were in. Could you tell us a few?
18 years ago, I taught at Kazan State University in Russia for six years and eight months. I also taught in the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia and Palacký University in Czech Republic for many years. Especially at Kazan State University, I became the first to establish a Korean Literature major in 2007, and in 2008, the place became the first state university to open up a Korean Research Institute with the support of the Korean embassy and the university board. The most rewarding experience was that the first four graduates have become Russian professors who teach students. Also, at the Czech Republic, I was the first in central European universities to open a master’s course on the Korean language. I must say that European universities are making changes to make their major courses more practical, and it is harder to graduate from those schools. A lot of European universities, including Russian ones, make it hard for students to advance to the next grade. The rate of students who graduate on time are also only around 30%, which is far lower than the number of Korean students. This shows how hard it is for them to graduate.

Q3. Is there a special reason you decided to run the 3+1 program with Korea?
In August 2019, a presidential decree was announced in Uzbekistan on the country’s higher education development plan until 2030. In particular, the government’s plan included 10 Uzbek universities making it to the list of top universities in the world as well as fostering specialized personnel. After this plan was declared, 12 overseas universities made it to Uzbekistan in three years, and five of them are Korean-type schools. But the problem with only utilizing the Korean university system was that it was hard to foster local experts. That’s why we decided to initiate a 3+1 dual degree program with Korean universities.

Q4. Our idea is that Korea’s decline in birth rates and the decrease of college students could be alleviated by running the 3+1 program with foreign universities. Could the program have any other advantage?
The dual degree system allows the university to which a student is enrolled and the “exchange university” that has signed an academic exchange agreement with the student’s school to both confer degrees to the student after he or she satisfies the requirements for graduating the enrolled school and earned a certain amount of credit. Normally, dual degrees are operated in master’s courses and they are rarely found in undergraduate courses. It is a norm for undergraduate dual degree systems to be run with a small number of dispatched students. If you look at the data of the Korean National Statistical Office below, you’ll see that the college student population decreases down to 80% in 2030 compared to 2020.

For the globalization and the internationalization of Korean universities and to overcome the risks of the fall in school population, universities in Korea have consistently made exchanges with schools overseas, leading to a rise in the number of universities that are running joint degrees and dual degree programs with foreign schools. I’m sure the number of Korean universities making their way into other countries will increase immensely in the foreseeable future.

Q5. Which Korean universities are currently running the 3+1 program with you? If they are running the program, please tell us the specific measures you’re implementing.
The process of a 3+1 dual degree usually includes signing an MOU, running conferences for dual degree programs and discussions on the educational courses of each major, and finally clearing the agreement process between the two universities. It’s not over yet. The overall MOA and the MOA on each major have to be concluded on the 3+1 dual degree program for its initiation. The consultation process takes at least two months, and the coordination between majors is also important. KIUF is running a 3+1 dual degree program with Sunmoon University in Korea. Kwangwoon University in Seoul has also made an exchange agreement with us, and we’re running discussions with engineering majors as our main focus.

Q6. Could you tell us about your future long-term plan on how you’ll further develop the 3+1 program?
New students are on the rise, and the number of majors is expected to increase from 11 to 13. I suspect that KIUF is the only foreign university institute to have 46 Korean professors recruited from Korea to teach strictly in Korean. In the long run, I believe the Korean university-based exchange will transform into an exchange activity between majors. To keep up with the trend of exchange with Korean universities, we must expand the number of available majors by reaching for diversification in university exchange programs.

Q7. What would be the educational programs’ effect for Korean living overseas?
For second-and-third-generation Koreans in Uzbekistan and other former Soviet Union countries, they’ll be able to realize their dream of returning to their home country by learning the mother tongue they have forgotten long ago. Though only a few, we do currently have Korean diaspora students in our school. Also, Korean students born in Uzbekistan can learn Korean at the King Sejong Institute and keep studying in our school to build their foundations for making their way to Korea. Meanwhile, Korean students attending the 3+1 university in Korea can also come to our school as exchange students and find opportunities to settle here.

Q8. Could you give us contact for university staff who might wish to collaborate with you regarding the 3+1 program?
We will be waiting for university staff who wish to run exchange programs and collaborate with us.
Prof. Dr. KAWK Bumo
Executive Vice President of International Affairs
Korea International University in Fergana (KIUF)
Email: bmkawk@kiuf.uz
Address: A #5-B, A Navioy Street, Fergana City, Uzbekistan

Current) Executive Vice President of International Affairs, Korea International University in Fergana International Director and Academic Journal Editor of the International Network for Korean Language and Culture Former) Professor of Palacký University in Czech Republic Professor of Ljubljana University in Slovenia Full-time Professor of National Defense Language Institute under the Ministry of National Defense Professor of Kazan State University in Russia, Chief of the Korean Studies Institute