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The KAIST undergraduate Student Council
asked the Support Team to open the Parents Trust Fund
Account on 16 Feb 04. [1] |
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The Parents Trust Fund fee in 2001 was 682,000 won per
semester for every student. This increased to 716,000 won
in 2002. In 2003, freshmen had to pay 787,000 won per
semester while all other students paid 751,000 won. In
2004, freshmen and sophomores had to pay 865,000 won per
semester while junior and above paid 788,000 won. Since
2001, the fund has increased about 5% annually - 10%
annually for students who were freshmen in 2003. |
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We have repeatedly asked for a report justifying
the 5% and 10% increases, and have also repeatedly requested
public disclosure of the details of the Parents Trust Fund. |
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However, the KAIST Student Support Team has
repeatedly refused to honor our requests. |
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As KAIST is a public organization, the Student
Council asked for disclosure of this information through
the Freedom of Information Act of Public Organizations. |
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The Student council made an open information
request at the online window for civil service linked to
the MOST homepage
(http://www.most.go.kr).
It was submitted to MOST through the internet under the name
of Kim Hye-Min, KAIST Student Council President.
[2] |
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The information we requested included details of the
estimated budget and closing account of the General Account
and Parents Trust Tund from 2001 to 2003, details of
estimated budget of the General Account/Parents Trust Fund
of 2004, and the minutes of Parents Trust Fund from 2003 to
2004. |
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MOST responded by phone around 8 May 04
that they would send the Freedom of Information request
to KAIST after a short delay to check the request's
legitimacy. |
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The Student Council learned that the KAIST Budget and
Planning Team received the official document of Freedom of
Information request from MOST around 11 May 04. |
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According to the Freedom of Information regulations, KAIST
was to provide the information within 15 days.
Information was provided around 24 May 04.
[3]
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However, the omission of a few crucial details made
this information almost useless. The Student Council
judged these omissions to be outrageous intentional
deception. |
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Accordingly, we subsequently requested that KAIST reveal the
entire Parents Trust Fund Account and General
Account. We formulated appropriate questions using the
information that KAIST provided us and submitted this new
request on 4 Aug 04. [4] |
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There has been no answer from KAIST about these official
requests, even though 3 months have passed since we
submitted them. |
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The Parents Trust Fund fees have been increasing steadily
in recent years. Not surprisingly, students have been asking
the reason for these increases. The Parents Trust
administrators simply answer that they lack sufficient budget.
If so, it would be desirable for the Parent Trust to
explain why there is a shortage and how short it is. |
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The Freedom of Information of Public Organizations specifies
that the public organizations - nations, local autonomous
entities, government investment organizations, etc - have
the duty to reveal information known to them in order to
secure the people's the right to know, the transparency of
national administration and the people's participation in
national administration. Since KAIST is a national
organization, it is subject to the Freedom of Information
Act. That means we are entitled to receive information about
money paid by students, and also general information
about school affairs. Although information capable of
causing great economic damage can be legitimately withheld,
we doubt that the information in question lies in
this category. Moreover, even it did, we think that
information about school affairs should be disclosed unless
it would cause immense economic damage. The people's
right to know is fundamental to democratic society. However,
KAIST just ignored our requests for details of Parents Trust
Fund until we forced it to reveal them using the Freedom
of Information Act. This willful obfuscation has caused us
to distrust KAIST all the more. We now believe that KAIST
should bring forth a counter-argument for not
revealing the details of Parents Trust Fund - e.g. opening
the details could hurt the school - since it is a great
disadvantage to have distrust and conflict between the
school and students. |
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In order to know for sure that the fund is being spent
properly, the General Account of KAIST must be examined
simultaneously. This is because the Parents Trust Fund is
used for managing KAIST, along with the governmental
contribution, KAIST's own income etc. As the KAIST Parents
Trust rules specify that it should (1) supplement the
shortage of facilities, (2) support the expense for KAIST
management or education activities, (3) support the co-op
programs, and (4) support other business incidental to
the Parents Trust, the goal of Parents Trust Fund must be
to secure urgently needed education facilities and
support education activities. |
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The highest body of the Parents trust is the Board of
Trustees. In order to check how priorities are determined,
what kind of business is being promoted, the budget
appropriation process and details of decisions made by
the Parents Trust Committee, we need the minutes of
Parents Trust Committee. However, the minutes of
Parents Trust Committee provided by KAIST contain
no details at all - only titles of report agendas and
decision agendas. But the real minutes must contain
all the details of reports and discussions during the
meeting. It is impossible for the KAIST Undergraduate
Council to understand the information about the Parents
Trust Committee with only titles of reports and decision
agendas. Therefore, we request that KAIST reveal all
details of report agendas, decision agendas and business
plans (or agendas). |
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It is impossible to understand the details of
expenditure of the Estimated Budget and Closing Account
thoroughly. |
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It is difficult to understand the meaning of 5. "Asset
Purchase Expense", 6. "Facility Expense" in (1) "Student
Reward Expense" in the Education Research Support section.
Taking (1) "Student Reward Expense" as an example, knowing
the matter of reward, how many students get the rewards and
how much reward was given to each student are essential to
understanding the expenditure. Requesting the Estimated
Budget and Closing Account of the Parents Trust Fund is
not merely about knowing the total amount of the Estimated
Budget and Closing Account but confirming that the
expenditure was proper – e.g. whether the expenditure was
increased as much as the tuition increase. Therefore,
details about each item rather than just an explanation
about the expenditure are needed. |
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The points in question about the details of the
estimated budget and closing account of the fund. |
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The balance of previous year and the balance carried over of
next year do not match. For example, while the official
balance of the fund in 2002 was 1,027,350,000 won, the
balance carried over of the fund in 2003 is only 751,025,000
won. Assuming that the balance in 2002 is the difference
between total income and total expenditure, it must be
1,200,932,000 won (7,848,850,000-6,647,918,000). We demand
an explanation for these kinds of points in question. |
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Also the Estimated Budget and Closing Account of
the General Account have indefinite items such as 7. "Seoul
Branch Facility Allotted Charge" in VI. "Extra Business
Expense. |
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Also 1. "Daeduck KAIST School Affair Expense"
exists in II. "School Affair Business Expense". More than 24
billion won - 24.2 billion won in 2004-has been appropriated
annually for this expense. It is judged that the details of
Daeduck KAIST School Affair Expense would be the similar to
that of Parents Trust Account, so we suspect that these 2
accounts might be duplicated appropriations. We demand an
appropriate answer for these points in question. |
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The KAIST rules mention the Parents Trust Fund
only once below. |
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| Article 88. (Parents Trust Fund) KAIST has Parents
Trust, and the Parents Trust can charge a certain
Parent Trust Fund fee. (Chapter 4 Clause 1
tuition, scholarship and graduation and performing
military duties) |
Although it is expressed that the parents trust fund "CAN
CHARGE" there is nothing specified about compulsion or
the penalty for not paying it at all. Chapter 4, clause 1,
article 87 (Tuition) says, "The students in each course have
to pay tuition (differentiated between entrance fee and school
fee) within the registration period." But the Parents Trust
Fund is not included in the tuition that students must pay.
However KAIST has charged the Parents Trust Fund as a kind
of tuition, in that the School Register Team, which levies
Parent Trust Fund charges, said that those who don't pay the
fee cannot be in school. |
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Originally, as the Parent Trust Fund was
regarded as an endowment because the Fund had begun to
supplement the shortage of school budget through parents'
voluntary participation, many students entering
KAIST knew that their tuition was exempted, but few students
knew that they had to pay this fee. It is necessary to
reveal this fee and to make the purpose of Parent
Trust clearer through mutual agreement rather than a little
vague expression "Can charge". |
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As the members of the Parent Trust are the
people who pay the fee, and since the fee is paid under
the student's name, the member of the Parent Trust is
the student. (The payment notice is delivered to the
student's home and it is paid as a kind of gift, so it
could also be interpreted that the parents are the members
of Parents Trust.) However, the members of Parents Trust
never heard that they were members of Parent Trust at all,
since neither a General Meeting nor an election have
been carried out in last 5 years. Furthermore, although we
asked for details of Estimated Budget and Closing Account,
we didn't receive a reply until last year. |
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The members don't know anyone on the Parents
Trust Committee, but a rumor has spread among KAIST
undergraduates that the Parents Trust is composed of
wealthy families who are not burdened by the
amount of the fee and reflexively say "Aye" at Board of
Trustee meetings . |
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For democratic management of the Parents Trust
to be credible, the Parents Trust must send a notice
regularly before General Meeting is held. For reference,
former congresswoman Lee Mi-Kyung, who used to the member of
National Assembly Education Committee commented, "Even
though we consider the point that parent participation in
managing the Parents Trust is not easy in practice,
universities must find a way to guarantee transparency
through various methods, such as opening its management or
involving parents or students in the Parents Trust", after
she investigated national universities' undemocratic
Parents Trust management. |
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We request below that the Parents Trust
be demcratically managed. |
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We request that parents be sent a notice every semester that
the Parents Trust fee is charged. |
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We request that the general meeting be regularly open,
as written in the Parents Trust rules. |
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We request that members of the Parents Trust be given the
right to read the minutes of Parents Trust Committee,
including the details of report and decision agendas. |
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We request that student representative or parents
recommended by students be required to participate in
Parents Trust Fund board meetings. |