Nineteen foreign graduates from 17 countries who studied here with support from the Korean government visited the country last week at the invitation of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology.

“It’s very exciting to see so many changes taking place in this country,” said Niki Tasika, a 42-year-old taekwondo coach from Greece.

He learned the Korean martial art at Kyung Hee University from 2000-2003.

Seyitriza Tigrek, 48, who studied at Seoul National University in 1993 and is now a professor in computer engineering at Baysal University in Turkey, said he was surprised to see many foreign students in Korea.

“When I was studying here, there were only a few foreigners,” he said. “But now I can see a lot of foreigners. I think Korea is becoming a more foreign-friendly country.”

During their eight-day stay until Sunday, they visited the World Expo in Yeosu, POSCO’s steel plant in Gwangyang, South Jeolla Province, and the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology in Seoul.

The government has been inviting alumni of the Korean Government Scholarship every year since 2003 to take part in the visit program.

The scholarship alumni program is designed to help them to build a mutual relationship with the fellow students and also to encourage them to introduce Korea to their countries, according to the National Institute for International Education, the state-run agency which organizes the program.

To encourage more foreign students to study in Korea, the government is planning to expand its “Global Korea Scholarship” program.

The government allocated some 50 billion won ($44 million) in 2010 to support more than 2,100 foreign students here, and it announced earlier that it would expand the annual GKS budget to 100 billion won by 2015.

The number of foreign college students in Korea reached 50,000 in 2008 and climbed to 89,537 last year. And the government plans to double the number of foreign students in domestic universities to 200,000 by 2020.

By Oh Kyu-wook (596stoy@heraldcorp.com)