University signs up young genius, 8
An eight-year-old boy will become the youngest university student in South Korea next year after he was accepted by Inha University in Inchon this month.
The university registered Song Yoo-gun as a student in its College of Natural Sciences after he passed the university's entrance exams.
He will start his studies in March with classmates almost three times his age.
'I am very glad to be admitted to the university and I will study harder in physics,' the boy said.
'Yoo-gun decided to go to Inha University because of its practical education curriculum rather than seeking the prestige of other universities,' his father, Song Soo-jin, said.
He will be at university four days a week but will be among his own age group at an elementary school once a week, where he will participate in physical education, music and art.
An Inha spokesman said the university recruited the boy for its natural science department to nurture his 'superior talent' in physics.
To entice him, the university has waived tuition fees and dormitory expenses. It will also offer him special one-on-one tutoring.
Yoo-gun may be the pioneer of a cadre of talented youngsters as the university plans to offer special programmes to foster other young geniuses with the support of the Science and Technology Ministry.
Home-schooled until last December, Yoo-gun entered primary school as a sixth grader. He finished the primary school-level requirements in February. A month later he had passed a qualification test that enabled him to skip middle school.
It took another two months for him to pass the high school qualification exam.
In August, the Ministry of Education and Human Source Development notified him that he had passed the qualification test for a high school diploma.
'I am happy,' he said in an interview with The Korea Times about receiving the diploma. He promised to work hard.
