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The Make Up of the Education System in South Korea

According to Edudemic, the graduation rate at the upper secondary level in South Korea is 94% whereas the rate in the United States is 76.8% (Lepi, 2013). So there is clearly something that South Korea is doing correctly. But to get to where they are today, the teachers, the parents, and the students all had to play their roles, and play their roles to the best of their abilities. In South Korea, the teachers play a very strict role in the students’ lives. Unlike most parents in America, parents in South Korea play an even bigger role in their children’s lives than the teachers. They set up strict education regimes for their children to follow. And the students react to these strict regimes with earnest obedience. This system of the three roles acting out their respective duties is what allowed South Korea to achieve their rank in the world.

The Role of the Teacher

Teachers in South Korea are very similar to teachers in America in terms of teaching their subjects. The materials and concepts that they teach are not different from what teachers teach here in America. For example, the calculus that teachers teach here in America is exactly like the calculus they teach in South Korea. But teachers in South Korea value morals. They put extra effort to make sure that students are responsible and respectful, even through means of corporal punishment. According to the article Children’s experience of violence in China and Korea: a transcultural study by Kim et al, the rate of “corporal punishment by teachers is 62.0% in South Korea” (Kim et al., 2000). Most of these punishments are actually not used for educational purposes but rather for giving consequences for disrespecting teachers or fellow students, or disobeying the teachers’ orders. This is probably a huge reason why students are very obedient to their teachers.

According to an interview I had with HyeEun Chung, a graduate student who recently came to America from South Korea to study here at the University of Maryland, her teachers were very strict with her and all of the other classmates as well. For some of her teachers, she could not even look directly into their eyes because it is disrespectful to do so. Because of their frequent use of corporal punishments, teachers are very respected by their students.

But not only are they respected by the students, the whole South Korean society respects the teaching profession. That is because South Korea “provides the highest teaching salaries in the world”, with the minimum being about $55,000 and the maximum salary being around $155,000 (Auguste, Kihn, & Miller, 2010). To give some more perspective, according to U.S. News, the minimum and maximum range for teachers in America is $36,930-$85.690, making the average salary of a teacher to be about $57,000 (“High School”, 2014). The average salary of a teacher in America is just around the minimum salary of a teacher in South Korea. Their salaries are so much higher in South Korea because there is a pressure for them to maintain superior teaching abilities due to their annual teaching evaluations (Auguste, Kihn, & Miller, 2010). South Korean teachers are evaluated by fellow educators, school administrators, students and parents at least once a year, and will participate in professional in-service education based on the feedback. As much as they are respected, teachers are under a lot of stress to maintain their work ethic and make sure that students are educated, not only intellectually but also in ethics as well.

I actually have first hand experience on corporal punishment because I attended elementary school in South Korea. When I was in first grade, we had a policy in the class that if five people did not do the homework, everyone in the class would get hit in the hand with a wooden stick. It may seem very wrong to have this kind of policy, but it was very effective in getting the job done because it taught us about sticking together and helping each other out. For the first couple of weeks, there were many times where the teacher had to bring her wooden stick out, but after a few weeks we realized that we had to keep each other up to date on the homework assignments and keep everyone on board. In a matter of a few weeks everyone was turning in the homework and we never had to deal with getting hit again for the rest of the year. It felt like a more intense version of the no child left behind mentality that we have here in America, except that we as the students had to realize this and make sure that our classmates were not falling behind in school. But these corporal punishments only get worse as you get older. So my older sisters received much worse punishments in middle school and high school. They would come back home with bruises and my mom could not do anything about it. So that was one of the main reasons why my parents decided to move to America.

The Role of the Parents

In South Korea, parents have a role just as important as a teacher, if not more. In America, parents can acquire the help of a tutor if their child is struggling in a subject or two and pay them to assist in that topic. In South Korea, they have something similar but they are called Hagwons. Hagwons are out-of-school private cram night schools that act as intense tutoring sessions that pack in another 5 to 6 hours of learning (“Intensely Competitive”, 2010). At these Hagwons, students relearn what they learned in school and they are set up to challenge the students even more because they are not challenged enough at their public schools.

Parents feel the need to send students to these night classes due to the competition that forms between parents. This competition between parents is called the “next-door-mom” effect where “a mother feels insecure over sending her children to fewer hagwons compared to her neighbors” (“Intensely Competitive”, 2010). Parents see that other parents are sending their children to hagwons so they start sending their children to the hagwons whether they need it or not. Because of this domino effect, it has become “common for middle class families to spend around $800 per child per month on this private out-of-school tuition” (Janda, 2013). Parents spend so much money for their children to learn something that they already learn at school just because of competition.

How is it that they are able to force their children to go to these classes after school? The answer lies behind some statistics about the family violence in South Korea. Based on the same paper that gave us the statistics on teacher violence, family violence was experienced in 68.9% of children in South Korea (Kim et al., 2000). That means that there is an even greater violence from the parents than from school, which makes sense because schools are government run educational facilities whereas at home, no one knows what happens behind closed doors. The statistics show that parents are forcing children to go to these Hagwons by means of violence because parents will resort to violence if their children disobey them.

According to HyeEun, it would be weird if their classmates did not attend Hagwons after school, it was something that everyone did, no matter how rich or poor you were. It was a necessity because everyone was doing it not because the students actually needed help in a subject. If you did not attend Hagwons, you would fall behind everyone else. For HyeEun, although she was forced to attend them at first, she actually enjoyed it because it helped her maintain a good grade at school. They helped her review the materials that she learned at school.

I personally never attended Hagwons because I only went to first and second grade in South Korea, but I remember that my older sisters had to go because my mom made them. They would go to school with me early in the morning, but they would always return home late at night. I asked my sister, Esther Park, about her experience attending Hagwons and she said that she hated it but she understood why my mother sent her to Hagwons. She saw that students would get bullied at school if they did not attend Hagwons because it somehow showed that they could not afford them. So in order to fit it, students had to attend Hagwons.

The Role of the Students

Judging by the roles that the teachers and the parents play, it is easy to see that the students do not really have a role that they play per say, but they are forced into this role of an obedient and docile human being. They are basically forced into these carbon-copy roles of a common student in South Korea. Because of the competition among the parents, all of these students are forced into going to Hagwons. And now, it is “typical for South Korean students to spend an average of 14 hours a day studying” (Janda, 2013). This is crazy to imagine here in America, where the only education that happens is in school. The role of the student is exactly to follow to orders of the teacher and the parent. And they have almost no freedom.

According to a Korean article, 81% of middle and high schools forbid relationships among students (“Hani”, 2011). They give out penalty points for holding hands, hugging, and kissing and if they reach a certain limit, students may even end up getting kicked out of school. This goes to show how little freedom students have at school. But what are the consequences of these students playing this role without any say or freedom?

There are numerous amounts of problems to this system of education that South Korea has today. One of the main problems is that there is too much pressure on the students to do well and excel at everything. Like I explained previously, middle class families spend around $800 per child per month, and because of this high cost in providing a good education for each child, there has been a recent shift to having fewer children (Janda, 2013). So most South Korean families end up having one or two children. This only intensifies the pressure even more on that single child. That means that the parents will focus all their efforts and money into that child to succeed which means that that child must succeed. That is a lot of pressure for one student to handle.

Because of this high pressure, there is bound to be competition among the students, especially because the parents are so competitive themselves, it is only bound to occur within their children as well. And because of the next-door-mom effect, parents are likely to compare their children with other children that are better than them and that would also put a lot of pressure on the students as well. According to a clinical psychologist in South Korea, Joo Mi Bae, “students do not see their peers as friends but as competition and believe they need to beat them to get ahead” (Hancocks, 2012). And these intense competitions always lead to bullying. Students get bullied for not going to Hagwons, and they get bullied for not getting good grades.

Many students cannot handle the pressure, the intense competition, and the reoccurring bullying and end up committing suicide. And thus South Korea “has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, a rate which spikes amongst young people when exam results are released” (Janda, 2013). And according to the South Korea National Statistics Office, almost one youth, between the age of 10 and 19, commit suicide every day (Hancocks, 2012). The role that South Korean students play is not easy. They must be able to endure the pain and critique they receive from both their parents and their teachers. And sometimes the pressure itself is enough to cause some irreversible problems.

When I talked to HyeEun about these consequences, she told me that it actually happened at her high school while she was attending. It was a very sad case because the student that committed suicide was very smart and excelled at school. Every year she would rank as number one in her class but one year she fell off her track and she became third and so she left a note for her parents and committed suicide. HyeEun talked about how suicides are such a common occurrence in schools all across South Korea and that most it is due to competition among the students. After listening to her story, I realized how different it is in America. In America, no one commits suicide just because of a bad grade. Of course teenage suicides do occur here in America but not because of grades. This goes to show how important of a role students play in the South Korean education system. They take their education very seriously and make great sacrifices, and at times, too great of a sacrifice.

Is the South Korean Education System Faltering?

On January 25, 2011, President Barack Obama stated in the State of the Union Address that America has a thing or two to learn from South Korea in terms of education reform. He is definitely true in that South Korea has made a drastic improvement in a short amount of time. According to Time Magazine, “Since 1962, South Korea’s GDP has gone up about 40,000%, making it the world’s 13th largest economy (Ripley, 2011). And this is most likely due to the education system that South Korea upholds today.

President Obama talked about how in South Korea, “teachers are known as nation builders” and that it is “time we treated the people who educated our children with the same level of respect” (Obama, 2011). He knows that students in South Korea are excelling and he believes that the only reasoning behind that are the teachers. But that is incorrect. In order for the education system to function in South Korea, you not only need excellent teachers, but you also need the parents and the students themselves to play a role as well.

Teachers and parents must be strict with the students, by even using violence, and the students must be willing to make a lot of sacrifices. Although the results of the South Korean education system seem desirable, there are many irreversible consequences that President Obama may not realize. It is true that teachers should get the same respect they do in South Korea, here in America. But some of that respect comes from the fact that many South Korean teachers resort to violence. And also South Korea has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, but a significant amount of those number are from the students. So is it worth it to implement educational system similar South Korea despites its costs? I do not think so. I do agree with President Barack Obama on that teacher should be more highly respected in our society, but I do not believe that resorting to violence and giving students immense amount of stress is healthy for the future generations.

Constructing a better Education System

The South Korean government is trying to improve their system so that Hagwons would not be necessary for students to get into college because not everyone can afford the $800 dollars per month per child private tuition required by the Hagwons. Former President Lee Myung-bak expressed his idea that “one-size-fits-all, government-led uniform curriculums and an education system that is locked only onto the college-entrance examination are not acceptable” and stated that he wants to change “school testing and university admissions policies to reduce student stress and reward softer qualities like creativity” (Ripley, 2011). Although this seems reasonable, it is nearly impossible because parents will not all of a sudden stop sending their children to Hagwons just because the tests have gotten easier. Because of the intense competitiveness that is instilled in South Korean parents due to the next-door-mom effect, “no one wants to be the first parents not to push their children and send them to Hagwon” (Janda, 2013). And also making the test less stressful would only encourage the parents to send their children to Hagwons even more because that means that the test will be easier for everyone. And if everyone does well on the test, the curve on the test would be so high that getting even one question wrong on the test may end up ruining your score. This calls for even more stress and pressure on the students.

Although the education system that South Korea has today, with the three main roles of teachers, parents, and student, may seem desirable to America, it will never be able to work in America. That is because America is melting pot of different cultures, different ideas, and different goals, whereas South Korea is a very homogenized country. The system that South Korea has today works in South Korea only because the teachers, the parents, and the students all want the same goal, a good grade.

Works Cited

Chung, HyeEun. Personal interview. 24 Apr. 2014.

Park, Esther. Personal interview. 2 May 2014.

Auguste, Byron, Paul Kihn, and Matt Miller. "Closing the talent gap: Attracting and retaining top-third graduates to careers in teachin." McKinsey & Company 1 (2010): 6-30. Print.

Hancocks, Paula. "South Korea teenagers bullied to death." CNN. Cable News Network, 26 July 2012. Web. 15 May 2014. <http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/25/world/asia/south-korea-school-bully/>.

"High School Teacher: Salary." High School Teacher Salary Information. U.S. News, n.d. Web. 15 May 2014. <http://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/high-school-teacher/salary>.

"Intensely Competitive Education In South Korea Leads to Education Fever." Med India. Med India, 27 Apr. 2010. Web. 15 May 2014. <http://www.medindia.net/news/Intensely-Competitive-Education-In-South-Korea-Leads-to-Education-Fever-68190-1.htm#ixzz31YoiSf7D>.

Janda, Michael. "The cost of Korea's rigorous education system." ABC News. ABC News, 22 Oct. 2013. Web. 14 May 2014. <http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-22/a-korean-education/5037704>.

Kim, Dae-Ho, Kwang-Iel Kim, Yong-Chon Park, Liang Dong Zhang, Ming Kang Lu, and Donggen Li. "Children‚Äôs experience of violence in China and Korea: a transcultural study." Child Abuse & Neglect 24.9 (2000): 1163-1173. Print.

Lepi, Katie. "South Korea vs U.S. Education: New Report Examines Key Differences - Edudemic." Edudemic. N.p., 31 May 2013. Web. 14 May 2014. <http://www.edudemic.com/south-korea-vs-u-s-education-new-report-examines-key-differences/>.

Obama, Barack. "Remarks by the President in State of Union Address." The White House. The White House, 25 Jan. 2011. Web. 15 May 2014. <http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/01/25/remarks-president-state-union-address>.

Ripley, Amanda. "Teacher, Leave Those Kids Alone." Time. Time Inc., 25 Sept. 2011. Web. 14 May 2014. <http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2094427,00.html>.

"이성교제 3번 걸리면 퇴학...." 한겨레. N.p., 17 Nov. 2011. Web. 15 May 2014. <http://www.hani.co.kr/arti/society/society_general/448998.html>.