Pearson recently released a global report on education comparing major factors in education, such as expenditure per student, GDP, graduation rates, etc. One of the top countries in Pearson’s list is South Korea. According to the report, there are some interesting differences between Korean education and American education. Understanding the Korean system can help in international student recruitment.
We cannot say Korean education system is superior to America’s based on these simple statistics. In fact, when U.S. President Barack Obama praised Korea for its excellent education system, many Koreans were perplexed, as they believe the American education system is much more advanced and ideal than Korea’s.
Obviously, both the Korean and American education systems have merits and flaws. The Korean education system, in general, is based on cramming and memorization. The downside is that, as a result, Korean students often lack original ideas and creativity. However, there is also good side. Most Korean students learn to carefully listen to others and respect what others have to say before making any judgment.
On the other hand, the American education system teaches students to think logically, raise questions, and discuss and argue extensively before accepting any statement or assumption. Since American students are trained to challenge others’ opinions and ideas, often they neither listen to others with an open mind, nor accept others’ opinions easily. When I recall most of my conversations with American students in my MBA program at Case, I remember their immediate responses to colleagues and professors would start with “but,” “however,” or “even though.” However, there are many things in our lives that cannot be explained logically such as emotions.
Instead of continuing these ongoing comparisons, I would like to focus on a couple unique characteristics of the Korean education system.
First, Korea has a strong social belief that education should be highly valued. They feel strongly that education has a power to change people’s destiny. Additionally, teachers in South Korea have a higher status in society. The WSJ published an interesting profile of a "rock-star teacher" in South Korea who earns $4 million a year. He has run a private tutoring business for over 20 years, all of them in the after-school tutoring academies, known as hagwons that uses video lectures to supplement classroom learning. How is this possible? It is all because the South Korean parents who are willing to invest considerable sums of money to supplement the schooling received from the mainstream. Eight out of ten South Korean parents say they feel financial pressure from hagwon tuition costs. Still, most keep paying the fees, convinced that the more they pay, the more their children will learn. For decades, the South Korean government has been trying to tame the country's private education market. Politicians have imposed curfews and all manner of regulations on hagwons, even going so far as to ban them altogether during the 1980s, when the country was under military rule. Each time the hagwons have come back stronger.
It is not too difficult to understand the trend once you experience the exclusive services that hagwons provide to the parents and students. Once students enroll, the hagwon embeds itself in families' lives. Parents get text messages when their children arrive at the academies each afternoon; then they get another message relaying students' progress. Two to three times a month, teachers call home with feedback. Every few months, the head of the hagwon telephones, too. In South Korea, if parents aren't engaged, that is considered a failure of the educators, not the family.
Therefore, Korean parents are willing to do anything to provide their children with better educational opportunities. Couples do not hesitate to sacrifice even their married lives to provide a better education for their children. Families choose to live separately because they do not want to uproot their children from the excellent education system in certain regions. Indeed, there are numerous “wild geese fathers” who live in solitude after sending their wives and children to the States for better education.
The Korean and American education systems are not perfect wholes, but probably we can compliment and supplement each other to enhance our educational systems overall. For example, Korean students should learn from the American education system about how to be creative and original. On the contrary, American students can learn from the Korean education system about how to listen to and respect others’ opinions.
