The application period for students who wish to attend the Jeju branch of the North London Collegiate School came to a close on Jan. 21. The school is the first of the ambitious Jeju Global English City (JGEC) schools program to open. It plans to do so this coming September, but according to government officials, the number of applications has been disappointing.
With only 792 submissions for 572 spots, the ratio of applicant to available seat is roughly 1.4:1 across all grades. Out of all the grades, 11th fared the worst, failing to attract enough submissions to fill the allotted desks.
“The numbers aren’t satisfactory,” said Jeju Free International Development Center Edu-City Dept. Director Park Chul Hee, “but we think that the reason behind that is because it was processed in such a short period of time and we haven’t fully promoted the school or the application for the NLCS Jeju.”
He continued, saying that “We thought our plan for marketing and promotion would be sufficient to have as many students as we wished, but after we accepted the applications from the students it wasn’t enough, so we were mistaken.”
The lack of response from potential students has NLCS and the Jeju Free International City Development Center (JDC) considering another application period from May through August. This could potentially include a 10th grade, previously omitted by the NLCS, in order to fill more spots and increase competition.
According to Park, it is an ongoing challenge to get enough qualified 11th-grade applicants. The screening process for NLCS is quite rigorous, he said, and as a result they will open another round of applications for that grade at least.
The lack of students is a concern from both financial and academic standpoints. The schools involved in the JGEC program were chosen due to their high academic standards, and a low turnout may result in less-qualified students being admitted.
“The quality of academic performance and the quality of the students can be compromised. We have this number of competition right now but we have a plan to accept more applications from inside and outside of Korea for all grades,” Park said.
Applicants will take exams this month, and once they are graded NLCS and the JDC will have a better picture of how many spots they need to fill.
Though this may appear to be a large obstacle, Park is enthusiastic about the project. He said, “we have been receiving a lot of phone calls from potential parents. What we have heard from them is that they are planning to relocate to Jeju.” Why relocate? To send their children to one of the JGEC’s prestigious schools.
Park said that besides the low turnout, “everything is on track.” At the same time students were submitting applications, so too were potential teachers, who responded in greater numbers for the 70 positions, of which five will be filled by Koreans. “I was informed by the NLCS in London that the applicant for one placement of the teaching staff was four to one,” Park said, continuing on to say that all senior leadership positions have been filled.
The hiring of the remaining 65 teachers is well underway, with interviews occurring throughout this month.
The JGEC is in talks with two more institutions which might become a part of the education project. JGEC is getting closer to signing a final Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with the prestigious US-based St. Albans School. This follows the signing, early last year, of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to conduct a feasibility study. It is expected that in March a similar (MOU) will be completed with Grenoble.
In addition to St. Albans and Grenoble, more than 10 schools have shown interest, and agreements may be penned in the near future. However, Park declined to name the institutions “because the negotiations have not been finalized” and said they are not ready to announce a timeline.
In total, the English language city will house 9,000 students at an estimated 10 schools. The schools will receive royalties from Haewul for the use of their name and services.
From now on all schools that wish to become a part of the English city will have to invest in the construction of buildings to which they will attach their names because “we cannot bare any additional costs except for the three schools,” said Park.
It was not clear to this reporter how far along construction is. Though Park did not quantify it, he stated “the school buildings will be finished by August, and we are doing site preparations for all the project sites. By the time the school admits students next year, site preparation near the campuses will be finished.”
He continued that Itami Jun, the Master Architect of the entire city, is personally designing “a landmark tower” for the NLCS campus to inaugurate its opening this fall. <Jeju Weekly>
<Darryl Coote darrylcoote@jejuweekly.comⓒ Jeju Weekly All rights reserved>
