Lee Hyo-sik

Four years before the Korean TV drama "Winter Sonata" ignited the first Korean wave in Japan in 2002, this reporter went to Tohoku University in Sendai, northeastern Japan, as an exchange student to study environmental engineering.

Japan's education ministry offered a 100,000 yen ($664) monthly living allowance, a fair amount of money at a time when the prices of goods and services were much lower than they are now, while the city of Sendai provided a heavily subsidized bus pass. The university and local community centers also gave out various household items for free and ran a wide range of support programs for international students residing in the city.

My academic supervisor, Professor Omura, even told me not to pay my share of the bill when the research team under his wing went out for food and drinks, which is very unusual in a country where even couples split bills to the last penny. He also often got me well-paying, but easy, part-time jobs on weekends. He even regularly invited me to his house and fed me traditional Japanese meals. There were also countless other occasions that evoked fond memories. Perhaps, I was treated better because of my engineering background.

Japan, which has struggled to cope with falling birthrates and its aging population long before Korea, has been very proactive in attracting not only foreign laborers, but also engineers, IT developers and designers to prop up its mature economy. This need for extra manpower from outside the country has created a foreigner-friendly academic environment at its universities and other academic institutions, attracting talented students from Asia and other parts of the world.

What about Korea? As Asia's fourth-largest economy, it grapples with a chronic labor shortage in its semiconductor and high-tech industries. Are universities here up to the task of attracting foreign students majoring in engineering and science?

According to the Ministry of Education, a total of 209,000 foreign students were enrolled at local universities and other higher-learning institutions as of April, up 15 percent from a year earlier. But unfortunately, many of them are studying liberal arts.

During a recent lunch with an executive of one of Korea's largest business groups, he said, "For many foreign students, the main purpose of studying in Korea is to earn as much money as possible while they stay here. They are not (very) interested in studying, and they go home with the savings when they finish the curriculum. Schools here need to make more efforts to attract foreign students majoring in engineering and science, who are willing to stay and work after their studies."

He said Samsung and other Korean companies severely lack research and development manpower for semiconductors, automobiles, displays and other high-tech products, adding that many Korean students who earn master's and Ph.D. degrees from universities in the U.S. and other advanced countries, decide to stay there instead of coming home. "It is much better for them to stay and work in the U.S. because of the higher salaries, better educational environment for their children and many other benefits."

The Korea Semiconductor Industry Association projects that local chipmakers will face a shortage of 54,000 employees with undergraduate and graduate degrees in the field by 2031, a significant increase from just 1,748 in 2022. The shortage will likely further grow, given Korea's falling birthrate and the growing tendency among students to shun engineering.

"Korean high school students these days don't want to study engineering or science. Instead, they all want to go to medical schools to become doctors because they want to make more money. To make matters worse, the number of Korean students (is) decreasing rapidly amid the low birthrate, which means there will be significantly fewer workers across all industries," the executive said.

Given this deepening manpower shortage of engineers and scientists, the nation must jump into the global competition to attract such talent from other countries to sustain its industries. Korea needs to compete with the United States, Japan, Taiwan and China to create a better academic and residential environment in order to draw talented students from India and other developing countries.

In this light, Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon's recent decision to establish the global city policy bureau is a timely and much-needed move. Established in July and led by Director General Lee Hae-sun, the bureau is responsible for attracting foreign graduate students in engineering and science to universities in the capital.

"Seoul City is serious about bringing in top foreign students in the fields of engineering and science because it is essential to creating a sustainable and vibrant industrial ecosystem in the capital city. We have and will visit more countries to meet with and persuade graduate students there to come and study in Seoul," Lee said during a recent luncheon.

But the reality is, the Seoul Metropolitan Government cannot get the job done alone. The central government should get actively involved because drawing talented engineering and science-major students from overseas is not an easy job.

Among others, the Ministry of Justice must relax the nation's complex visa system, which has 37 categories and over 80 detailed types, the biggest obstacle for foreign nationals seeking long-term residency here. The Ministry of Employment and Labor should relax work-related regulations for highly-skilled non-Koreans, while the education ministry should expand support for local universities in building a friendlier academic environment for foreign students. Other ministries also have something to do to work toward this tall task.

President Yoon Suk Yeol must set up a pan-government policymaking body that coordinates and overhauls policies related to talented foreign nationals if Korea wants to become the place where they want to come, study and work.

The writer is the politics & city desk editor at The Korea Times.