Private sector educational institutions in Korea are hopeful that a new visa stream, aimed at capitalising on the popularity of Korean culture and expected to commence later this year, will open up more international student recruitment opportunities.
In January, the Korean Justice Ministry announced that it will launch a new Hallyu (Korean wave) visa for international students who want to study Korean culture and entertainment-related programmes for longer than three months.
Under current immigration rules, only universities are able to authorise student visas for international students. It is anticipated that the Hallyu visa will be eligible for private sector institutions.
JeeHo Kim, Managing Director of Korean language school Lexis Korea, which as previously reported operates a range of K-Pop, K-Beauty and K-Culture courses in partnership with local universities, told StudyTravel Magazine that they were eagerly awaiting more details.
“It is good news for our industry, especially at this time when Korean culture such as K-Pop, K-Beauty and Korean movies/dramas are hitting the world,” said Kim.
He explained, “From a student’s perspective, it is quite a difficult situation when they want to study long term (more than three months) with private educators. For example, we at Lexis Korea are a private language school and most of our international students are only able to come with a 90-day tourist visa even though they want to study for a longer period.”
“As a result, there were many students who have to travel in and out from Korea to extend the 90-day tourist visa, and students have to waste their money on booking a flight to Japan just for a weekend trip.”
Kim continued, “Launching a new Hallyu visa will definitely bring a positive change and growth in the study abroad industry of Korea (unless the government makes the mistake to set a bar too high for students and private educators to apply for the visa) and it’s just a basic system that Korea has to have for international education.”
“Having more international students residing in Korea will also be greatly supportive to our economy in many different aspects and will also reduce the impact of the lowest birth rate problem in Korea.”
The Justice Ministry said that it would reveal further details of the Hallyu visa in the first half of this year.
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