Recently, in Inha University, they started to reduce or abolish the capacity of some departments in the College of Humanities. For example, the Dept. of Philosophy and French Language and Culture will be abolished, and their major classes will be liberal arts classes. In case of the Dept. of English Language and Literature and Japanese Language and Culture, their capacity will be reduced. The reason for these changes is a new government plan called Prime Business, which will be announced by the Ministry of Education in January 2016. The purpose of Prime Business is that the Ministry of Education will select 9 universities that will reform certain departments into ¡®employment-oriented¡¯ departments, and they will provide 150 billion won in support to them during a year. That is, the Ministry of Education will support universities that transfer 10% of the entrance quota to high employment-rated departments. On second thought though, it is obvious that the College of Humanities will be affected. The percentage of its employment is lower than other colleges, so if this business is applied to our university, the humanities will be the first victim. According to the purpose for universities in the Higher Education Act, this was specified: ¡°A university exists for contribution toward Nation and human society.¡± I think universities contribute for a high employment rate nowadays. It is pitiful to me when people neglect the humanities and focus on employment. The first humans survived by thinking. However, nowadays, the humanities are gradually being excluded in universities just because the humanities have low percentages of employment. Personally, I believe that the knowledge that I learned in university is the best knowledge in my life, but it is a pity that future university students will not have any of those.
When I pass the Headquarters of Employment Strategy & Support on the first floor of E3, I always think, ¡®Someday, I will visit there.¡¯ I can't be free from thinking about employment because employment is very important in Korea. Although English is hard to learn, as a student who is majoring in English in the College of Humanities, I think about if the humanities can survive from time to time.