It seems reasonable and sensible that the government is pushing to have the country’s school year start in September, not in March as currently set. Under a plan announced this week as part of structural reforms aimed at enhancing national competitiveness, the Education Ministry is to collect public opinions on the proposed change before making a final decision by the end of 2016.

This is not the first time that the need to change the school year system has been raised here. In 1997 and 2007, discussions were made on whether to move the start of the school year to September, but concern over the costs and confusions that might accompany the measure stopped the idea from being put into practice.

Over the past years, however, the need to match the local system with prevailing international practices has increased further.

Korea and only a few other major countries such as Japan and Australia have their school year start in spring. In most of the 34 member states of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and China, the school year begins in fall.

This discrepancy has caused inconveniences for Korean students who go abroad and foreign students who come to the country to study. It has also stood in the way of the smooth implementation of exchange programs between Korean and foreign schools.

Introducing the new system would especially help many Korean universities, which are beginning to struggle with a fall in the number of enrolled students, to attract more students from abroad. With the country’s birthrate remaining at the lowest level in the world, local universities are set to accept a decreasing number of entrants in the coming decades. The number of those born in 1995, who entered university this year, amounted to about 715,000, but the figure for last year stood at around 436,000.

According to data from the Education Ministry, the number of foreign students attending universities here increased from 12,314 in 2003 to 85,923 in 2013, accounting for less than 3 percent of the total enrolled students. This proportion is far lower than the average figure for prestigious universities in major advanced countries at more than 20 percent.

The new school year system would also make it possible to get rid of spring break and extend summer vacation. This would help students gain more on-the-job, work-related experiences and engage in various volunteer activities.

Surely, there will be many difficulties in adjusting curriculums and admission procedures in accordance with the new school year system. But adherence to the old scheme would only leave the country behind in the global competition to enhance educational competitiveness. In the course of debates through 2016, thorough preparations should be made for the introduction of the new system so that possible confusions and costs in the initial stage of its implementation can be avoided or minimized.