Student Union
South Korean Students Flock Back Home
As the COVID-19 pandemic expands in countries popular for studying abroad, over 100,000 South Korean students overseas are racing back home.
South Korea has received an influx of overseas Koreans, mostly students, in the past weeks, as most universities convert to online classes, and borders lock down amid the global pandemic.
"The main reason I decided to come back was because I didn't have the health care or the money to cover the costs of testing or treatment if I ended up contracting the virus," said Heasu Lee, a senior at George Mason University in Virginia.
South Korea is similar in size to New York state and is just reaching 9,800 confirmed cases in the entire nation, while New York has over 67,000 confirmed cases and more than 1,300 deaths within a few days.
South Korea's health authorities said they will ban incoming passengers with temperatures higher than 37.5 Celsius. Beginning April 1, the country will enforce a two-week self-isolation period for all overseas arrivals, whether they have symptoms or not.
Closures cause alarm
Along with worrying about protection and health care as foreigners, some students noticed an increase in panic and change in policies in countries hard hit with COVID-19, fueling their decision to return to Korea.
Jaeyi Jeong, a junior at Sungshin University in Seoul, studied in Aschaffenburg, Germany, for one year.
"I went to Germany as an exchange student to interact with people, take classes in a different country and experience a new country and culture. But once Germany began implementing stricter policies and shutting down schools, the reason as to why I went to Germany vanished," Jeong said.
She said she was shocked when all 16 states in Germany closed schools and day care centers until April 20. She first thought it would not affect her area because it was a remote region.
"I wasn't even in a big city like Berlin. I was in a small city on the outskirts of Frankfurt. But once I began hearing that there were cases there, I began to get anxious," she said.
Looking Asian brings anxiety
Jeong said she also experienced racism.
"I would probably experience racism like five times a day," she said. "Hearing, 'You're corona. Go back to China,' and 'Do you know how to even speak German?' would be the norm. Some would even stop in their tracks once they saw me, cover their mouths, or even run away. I thought to myself, 'I shouldn't have to stay here experiencing this and not be able to go to school.'" With a sudden demand for international flights to South Korea, students faced airline cancellations or inflated fares.
"I was desperate to leave within March because I thought this was the only way to leave within a reasonable price range," said Jeong.
Students who managed to score nonstop flights, however, did not report a comfortable ride.
"I went to the airport with a N95 mask and gloves and didn't take them off the entire 14-hour flight," said Lee of George Mason University. "I tried to go to the bathroom as little as possible and only ate one in-flight meal because I was so anxious during the ride."
Sheltering in place
There are also students who have decided to stay put for a little longer.
Saeyeon Kwon, a junior at George Mason University, said she is worried about being in the United States as a foreigner but decided to stay until the end of the semester.
"My parents and I decided that it's equally dangerous in the United States and in South Korea. There are a lot of cases where I live in South Korea, too, so we just decided it would be safer for me to stay put during this time," said Kwon.
She would have to readjust her schedule to U.S. time for online classes, she said, which was another reason she decided to stay in the United States.
Blame and shame
As thousands of students pour into South Korea, the country has seen a rise in new COVID-19 cases, for which the students are being blamed. Critics blame the students.
"Overseas student phobia," a phrase coined by several Korean news outlets, grew after a student traveling from the United States violated quarantine recommendations and went on a five-day trip to Jeju Island with her mother, despite having symptoms.
Ninety-six people who were in contact with them were forced into isolation. Over 20 businesses were forced to close.
During a meeting at Central Disaster Safety Response Headquarters on March 30, South Korean Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun requested to "pay exceptional attention towards young overseas students so that they do not violate guidelines and recommendations."
"I do understand people criticizing those who are not taking the necessary measures advised by the government," said Lee. "But I don't think people should criticize everyone, because there are many people following orders and self-quarantining for two weeks."
Said Jeong of Sungshin University, "It's disheartening, because many of us came without a choice. This was a difficult decision for a lot of students. We have families and are possibly even more worried about the virus because a lot of us are coming from high-risk countries. … I wish that people wouldn't jump to conclusions and automatically bad-mouth all of the students coming back home."
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US advisory council ends Nigeria visit, signs student exchange deal
Members of a U.S. presidential advisory council have approved a student exchange deal between an American college and a Nigerian university as part of the council's effort to strengthen collaboration on education, health, entrepreneurship and development between Africa and Africans living abroad.
The council also visited a health facility supported by the United States Agency for International Development in the capital.
Nigerian authorities and visitors chatted with members of the U.S President's Advisory Council on African Diaspora Engagement as they toured a healthcare facility in Karu, a suburb of Abuja, on the last day of the council's three-day visit to Abuja and Lagos.
The facility is one of many supported by the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID, to improve the management of childhood illnesses, family planning, immunization and delivery.
The tour was part of the council's effort to promote African diaspora-led investments in technology entrepreneurship, education and healthcare delivery.
"They're doing a phenomenal job there, it really gave us a sense of what the healthcare system is in Nigeria," said Deniece Laurent-Mantey, executive director of the advisory council. "This is our first trip as a council to the continent and we chose Nigeria for a reason — the diaspora in Nigeria is very active, very influential, and they're really a source of strength when it comes to our U.S.-Africa policy. And so for us coming to Nigeria was very intentional."
The council was created by President Joe Biden in September to improve collaboration between Africa and its diaspora in terms of economic and social development.
Akila Udoji, manager of the Primary Healthcare Centre of Karu, said officials in Nigeria were pleased that the council members were able to visit.
"We're happy that they have seen what the money they have given to us to work with has been used to do, because they have been able to assist us in capacity-building, trainings, equipment supply and the makeover of the facility," Udoji said.
Earlier, the council signed a deal for a student exchange program between Spelman College in the southern U.S. city of Atlanta and Nigeria's University of Lagos.
Laurent-Mantey said education exchanges are one of the council's top priorities.
"In Lagos, we had the president of Spelman College — she's also a member of our council — she signed an agreement with the University of Lagos to further education exchange programs in STEM and creative industries between those two universities," Laurent-Mantey said. "And I think for us it's very important, because Spelman College is a historically Black university, and so here we are promoting the importance of collaboration between African Americans and Africans."
In March, the advisory council adopted its first set of recommendations for the U.S. president, including the student exchange initiative, advocating for more U.S. government support for Africa, climate-focused initiatives, and improving U.S. visa access for Africans.
The council met with Nigerian health and foreign affairs officials during the visit before leaving the country on Wednesday.
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5 killed, dozens injured in clashes over Bangladesh jobs quota system
At least 5 people were killed and dozens injured in two separate incidents in Bangladesh as violence continued Tuesday on university campuses in the nation's capital and elsewhere over a government jobs quota system, local media reports said quoting officials.
At least three of the dead were students and one was a pedestrian, the media reports said. Another man who died in Dhaka remained unidentified.
The deaths were reported Tuesday after overnight violence at a public university near Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka. The violence involved members of a pro-government student body and other students, when police fired tear gas and charged the protesters with batons during the clashes, which spread at Jahangir Nagar University in Savar, outside Dhaka, according to students and authorities.
Protesters have been demanding an end to a quota reserved for family members of veterans who fought in Bangladesh's war of independence in 1971, which allows them to take up 30% of governmental jobs.
They argue that quota appointments are discriminatory and should be merit-based. Some said the current system benefits groups supporting Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Some Cabinet ministers criticized the protesters, saying they played on students' emotions.
The Bengali-language Prothom Alo daily newspaper reported that one person died in Dhaka and three others, including a pedestrian, were killed after they suffered injuries during violence in Chattogram, a southeastern district, on Tuesday.
Prothom Alo and other media reports also said that a 22-year-old protester died in the northern district of Rangpur.
Details of the casualties could not be confirmed immediately.
While job opportunities have expanded in Bangladesh's private sector, many find government jobs stable and lucrative. Each year, some 3,000 such jobs open up to nearly 400,000 graduates.
Hasina said Tuesday that war veterans — commonly known as "freedom fighters" — should receive the highest respect for their sacrifice in 1971 regardless of their current political ideologies.
"Abandoning the dream of their own life, leaving behind their families, parents and everything, they joined the war with whatever they had," she said during an event at her office in Dhaka.
Protesters gathered in front of the university's official residence of the vice chancellor early Tuesday when violence broke out. Demonstrators accused the Bangladesh Chhatra League, a student wing of Hasina's ruling Awami League party, of attacking their "peaceful protests." According to local media reports, police and the ruling party-backed student wing attacked the protesters.
But Abdullahil Kafi, a senior police official, told the country's leading English-language newspaper Daily Star that they fired tear gas and "blank rounds" as protesters attacked the police. He said up to 15 police officers were injured.
More than 50 people were treated at Enam Medical College Hospital near Jahangir Nagar University as the violence continued for hours, said Ali Bin Solaiman, a medical officer of the hospital. He said at least 30 of them suffered pellet wounds.
On Monday, violence also spread at Dhaka University, the country's leading public university, as clashes gripped the campus in the capital. More than 100 students were injured in the clashes, police said.
On Tuesday, protesters blocked railways and some highways across the country, and in Dhaka, they halted traffic in many areas as they vowed to continue demonstrating until the demands were met.
Local media said police forces were spread across the capital to safeguard the peace.
Swapon, a protester and student at Dhaka University who gave only his first name, said they want the "rational reformation of the quota scheme." He said that after studying for six years, if he can't find a job, "it will cause me and my family to suffer."
Protesters say they are apolitical, but leaders of the ruling parties accused the opposition of using the demonstrations for political gains.
A ruling party-backed student activist, who refused to give his name, told The Associated Press that the protesters with the help of "goons" of the opposition's Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Jamaat-e-Islami party vandalized their rooms at the student dormitories near the Curzon Hall of Dhaka University.
The family-of-the-veterans quota system was halted following a court order after mass student protests in 2018. But last month, Bangladesh's High Court nulled the decision to reinstate the system once more, angering scores of students and triggering protests.
Last week, the Supreme Court suspended the High Court's order for four weeks and the chief justice asked protesting students to return to their classes, saying the court would issue a decision in four weeks.
However, the protests have continued daily, halting traffic in Dhaka.
The quota system also reserves government jobs for women, disabled people and ethnic minority groups, but students have protested against only the veterans system.
Hasina maintained power in an election in January that was again boycotted by the country's main opposition party and its allies due to Hasina's refusal to step down and hand over power to a caretaker government to oversee the election.
Her party favors keeping the quota for the families of the 1971 war heroes after her Awami League party, under the leadership of her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, led the independence war with the help of India. Rahman was assassinated along with most of his family members in a military coup in 1975.
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