The Korean culture heavily emphasize on education, and this can be seen through their rigorous education system and extracurriculars. Prior to researching in depth on the Korean education system, I would stumble upon information every once a while on “Korea produces top and high achieving students” or “Korea education system is too stressful”. Not looking too much into Korean education, I thought it would be like the Chinese education system because the rigor, selectivity, and competition is seemingly similar across both systems. The mentally taxing exam in China is called the “高考” (gaokao) and is equivalent to the SAT in the United States, but unlike the SAT, the 高考 is taken once during the final year of high school. The same goes for Korean university entrance exam called the “수능” (suneung). During this exam day in China, noise level is brought down to the minimum including delaying public transportation and having police officers patrol the streets to ensure quietness and no disturbances that can affect the test takers. Similar procedures are used in Korea as well to ensure students get the best chance to obtain a high enough score to get into top universities.
In Korea, the top universities are abbreviated as SKY that is Seoul National University, Korea University, and Yonsei University. These universities are equivalent to ivy leagues in the States, and graduates from SKY are almost guaranteed a future / well-paying job. However, the path to get into the university is not a simple one. Middle school and high school students in addition to school, most of them attend private tutoring commonly known as “cram schools” or “학원” (hagwon) until late at night. These cram schools are for-profit and tutor many subjects in the school system such as math, science, English, etc. A typical schedule for middle and high school students is wake up early in the morning to go to school, attend a 학원 (hagwon), complete school homework, and eat meals somewhere in between. Sleep is often compromised in middle and high school because the amount of academic work they must do to attend top universities so that students can have a bright future.
I watched a few Youtube videos on various Korean student schedules, and the schedule seems quite intense for high school students and middle school students. I watched a video from Buzzfeed, and it contrasted the school schedule of a high school Korean student and a United States student. The contrast is quite big and was interesting to see what the respective education system focuses on. For an example, the Korean student mentions that she works on questions/problems every day while the American student follows an average student schedule from the American perspective. The American student did also attend a specialty high school that focuses on the arts, so the coursework was different than that of the Korean student. Nevertheless, as a viewer, I could feel both students have their own stresses, but the Korean student made me feel as though she was under an enormous amount of stress, which is most likely attributed by how the Korea education functions.
In my opinion, I think the United States education system should adopt some of the same aspects in the Korean education such as 학원 (hagwon) so that students are given the best resources they can to achieve a better future. However, there are opportunities for people that don’t go to college and go directly into a vocational school, and can still have a well-paying job in the States whereas in Korea, that may not be the case.
Comments
Hi Anna, thank you for sharing on the Korean education system. I think it is definitely very strict and I did my cultural presentation on it once before and I can only imagine how stressful it really is for students because of the demands and pressures required to get into a college and do well afterwards
Hey Anna, thank you for sharing your thoughts and informing me about the Korean education system. I had no clue that it was that rigorous, and that they go to the extent of monitoring noise-levels for the city on the day of tests! I find it hard to conceptualize how stressful that must be since students in the United States already have a lot on their plate. I don’t think the US should adopt any educational aspects from Korea, as both countries could benefit from a type of educational reform that places less stress on children with more promising futures simultaneously.
Hi Anna! I thought your post on Korea's education system was very interesting. It's amazing how serious China and Korea takes gaokao and suneungs to the point that the traffic noise levels are brought down to the minimum and police officers patrol the streets to make sure that it's quiet. I also think hagwons would be helpful, but it definitely would be a big shift in the way that Americans study.