Passing through the gates of my South Korean middle school for the first time, I was greeted by a rather strange sight: a group of about 20 students, faces red and sweaty, were neatly lined up doing star-jumps in full school uniform under the watchful eye of a teacher. Upon seeing me — and without missing a beat — they all stopped mid-exercise, bowed at me and continued with what I was later to learn was morning punishment.
Many more surprises followed that day, but that event always sticks out in my mind for some reason. I think it’s because it illustrated what I have since learnt about the nature of the Korean education system — harsh, regimented and very unforgiving of mistakes.
For most Koreans, school days are a stressful time filled with pressure and expectations. While Western children are hitting the beaches or relaxing at malls, Korean students are hitting the books — hard. The reason for this is simple: failure in any academic endeavour is just not an option. Parents, relatives, teachers and peers all play their part in a system that ratchets up the definition of success to ridiculously unrealistic levels. Any failure to meet expectations (realistic or not) results in heavy pressure to improve being applied from all quarters.
The reasons for this obsession with performance are largely social and historical. Korea has always been a hyper-competitive society focused on status and wealth, and education is seen as the route to this success. The better you are academically, the better your chances are of attending what is considered a ‘good” high school. These high schools always have a large percentage of their students successfully applying for places in the top universities, which promise better, higher paying jobs upon graduation.
Schools are also seen as a place to build up social connections for later in life. The old boys’ network is alive and well in Korea, and the more prestigious your school, the more likely you are to have powerful friends.
The costs of this constant one-upmanship are heavy for both parents and children. A recent study showed that annually about $12-billion — or 41% of total education spending in Korea — goes toward private education. This is in contrast to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) average of just 12% being spent on private education. The response to this huge demand for private extra tuition has been an explosion of private schools (hagwons in Korean), teaching everything from math to speed-reading.
So, while children in other countries might head home after school to do a few hours of homework and watch TV, most Korean children will be rushing from one hagwon to the next in an attempt to get that all-important edge. Most will attend multiple institutes for hours on end and this will be on top of a full school day. After attending these institutions they will go home to complete both regular school homework and any additional homework provided by the hagwons.
School itself is made up of a myriad tests. The majority of these are designed for rote memorisation rather than the practical application of knowledge. The results of this are that you will often be faced with children who score 90% plus in English tests, but cannot even have a basic conversation with you. This love for theoretical orthodoxy extends to nearly all subjects and is reflected in the discouragement of self-expression and experimentation in the classroom.
The best way to judge any system is by its final product. I have found Korean students’ approach to their studies extremely disciplined and responsible. They have a genuine eagerness to learn and succeed. The atmosphere of excellence and hard work that is cultivated in schools remains with Koreans well into their later lives. This has been amply illustrated by the extreme hard work that brought Korea back from being a devastated country after the Korean War to a country with the world’s eleventh largest gross domestic product.
But there is a feeling among Koreans that it is time for a change. Many are pointing fingers at the rigid teaching style as being responsible for stifling the creativity that is so important in the global economy. In addition, the huge amounts of money being poured into private education has caused alarm for the government for a number of years and has resulted in a number of unsuccessful attempts to curtail it.
In my view, however, the biggest problem is the single-minded focus on academic achievement and perpetual one-upmanship that seems to border on obsession. Children are often not allowed to grow up at their own pace and are constantly under pressure to conform and perform. Someone will need to draw the line between healthy competition and going too far.
Education in Korea seems to be at an interesting crossroads with conservatives in education clinging to the established methods and the relatively new government looking to alter the established order. The next ten years will undoubtedly be an interesting time for Korean education.