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Education in South Korea

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The education system in South Korea is known for being very strict and competitive. Students are expected to get into top universities, especially the "SKY" universities (Seoul National University, Korea University and Yonsei University). While this focus has helped the nation's economy grow and boost the rate of education of its people, the issues that arise from this has left much up for debate.

History

Pre-division period

Education has been present throughout the history of Korea (1945–present). Public schools and private schools have both been present. Reforms to education began in the late 19th century. Since its founding, Korean education has been heavily influenced by Confucian values. Confucianism instills the facilities of governance of men by merit, social mobility through education, and the civil examination system based upon the system used during Tang Dynasty China. As a result, reading, writing and knowledge of Chinese classics became the primary method in choosing individuals for bureaucratic positions, gaining them a respective social status and privileges.

The Joseon period was significant in shaping the dynamics and foundation of the Korean education system. Schools ingrained loyalty, orthodoxy and motivation for official recruitment into its students. The primary means to receive an education during the Joseon dynasty were through village schools (seodang; seojae) and through private tutoring. The seodang was the most common method of formal education until the late twentieth century.

It was usually available only to a handful of neighborhood boys, starting at the age of seven. The role of official schools gradually started to decline from the mid-sixteenth century with the emergence of private academies (seowon), which were rural retreats and centers of learning. The majority of them were closed in the 1870s in an effort to centralize authority.

Preparing students for competitive examinations was pronounced during the Joseon dynasty as a means of social mobility and selection of official positions, and remained a basic tenet in Korean education throughout its history. This extreme emphasis on education and meritocracy was contrasted by hereditary aristocracy during the Joseon dynasty, where bloodlines and kinship were particularly pronounced. Due to Confucian influences, education was able to maintain an equalizing presence over society because of its belief in each individual being capable of benefitting from formal education and achieving enlightenment.

Education was dominated by the exalted scholar-teacher relationship, where teachers held a sacred status and were seen as a principal source of ethical counsel. This convention engendered the tradition of remonstrance, which obligated the scholar to criticize the actions of the government and the king in order to avoid threatening the Confucian concept of the moral order of the universe.

The dynastic period did not prioritize specialized training, and thus a preference for a non-specialized and literary education has remained. Many of these developments were pronounced towards the end of the 19th century when the Joseon dynasty began implementing a Western-style education system as a result of the intrusion of foreign powers. By 1904, public education was confined to Seoul, which was generally resisted by both the public and government officials.

This maintained the dominance of seodang and other traditional institutions as the primary means to receive a formal education. As a result of financial support from members of the royal family and American missionary activities and schools, the number of schools began to increase in the early 1900s. In order to promote literacy, a mixed script of Hangul and Chinese characters was added to instruction.

During the Japanese occupation (1905–1945), Korea established a comprehensive and modern system of national education, through centralization and deliberate planning to integrate Japanese occupational professionalism and values. Education was based on Japanese values, literacy and history so that Koreans would become loyal to Japan and wipe out Korean culture and history.

However, there were severe restrictions like the lack of access to education beyond the elementary level and the manipulation of education to indoctrinate Koreans to become loyal to the Japanese Empire. This led to turmoil and discontent among those who were forced to assimilate. Koreans were only offered a low-level and non-professional education, in contrast to their Japanese counterparts. This was pronounced by the Educational Ordinance of 1911, where Japanese residents had fourteen years of schooling available, whereas Koreans only had eight years available to them.

Higher education was a central issue for Koreans, who were provided very limited access to these institutions as well as positions of administration and teaching. With the introduction of the Educational Ordinance of 1938, Korean schools became identical to Japanese ones in organization and curriculum, making education a highly regimented tool for forced assimilation and militarization.

Post-war years

After Korea's liberation from Japan, the government began to study and discuss a new philosophy of education. The new educational philosophy was created under the United States Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK), with a focus on democratic education. The new system attempted to make education available to all students equally and make the educational administration more self-governing. It emphasized a decentralized system under local and community control in order to maintain education's separation from politics. Specific policies included re-educating teachers, teaching adults to read and write, restoration of the Korean language for technical terminology, and expansion of various educational institutions.

During the years when Rhee and Park Chung Hee were in power, the control of education was gradually taken out of the hands of local school boards and concentrated in a centralized Ministry of Education. In the late 1980s, the ministry was responsible for the administration of schools, allocation of resources, setting of enrollment quotas, certification of schools and teachers, curriculum development, including the issuance of textbook guidelines, and other basic policy decisions. Provincial and special city boards of education still existed. Although each board was composed of seven members who were supposed to be selected by popularly elected legislative bodies, this arrangement ceased to function after 1973. Subsequently, school board members were approved by the minister of education.

Some time later, a debate between whether to maintain the multitrack system or to adopt a single system akin to that of the American education system. A multitrack and single secondary school system prevailed in the end, largely due to the fact that administrators did not want to divide institutions, and parents were not receptive to the idea of two entrance exams. The outcome of the 1950 MOE proposal for a uniform system was a 6-4-3-4 academic schedule, which entailed 6 years of primary school, 4 years of middle school, 3 years of vocational or academic high school, and 4 years of college or university.

A complex system of technical and vocational training was also added to educational policy, where children were able to decide on an academic versus a vocational route early on in their academic career. Many opponents of this policy actually viewed it as positive because they believed that the academic route would seem more prolific and parents and students would be willing to pursue it more than the vocational route.

Even though a few local school boards were established toward the late 1940s, they were not appreciated by many Koreans because there was a widespread notion that a uniform and centrally controlled system is best. A rigorous and uniform national curriculum was established in the mid-1950s and there were significant efforts to make school accessible for everyone, especially in the context of Rhee's declaration of compulsory universal literacy and basic education. While universal basic education eliminated disparities between classes, competition became very fierce due to restricted entry into higher academic tiers, which contributed to the predominant "education fever" that is still prevalent in South Korea.

In the 1960s, there was a difficulty in harnessing the demand for education towards the needs of an industrializing economy, which caused a growth in private foundations in order to supply the public demand for schooling. The 60s and 70s were characterized by a large demand to direct educational development to economic development, which necessitated a greater emphasis on vocational and technical training rather than academic training in order to help citizens gain skills that would supply the country's economic needs.

Even though there were major criticisms on behalf of the public for this emphasis on vocational training due to a clashing with Confucian values, the state continued to strengthen vocational education, especially after the shift in industrialization to heavy chemical and machine industries in the 70s. The 1960s and 70s experienced turmoil in education systems due to public resistance and the recalcitrance of private schools toward the state as they attempted to supply public demand. While the state was able to fulfill many of its economic goals, it came at a great social and political cost such as the de-population of rural areas and President Park's assassination.

South Korea's modernization and economic growth after the Korean War are often attributed to the resources invested in education. The adult literacy rate grew from an estimated 22 percent to 87.6% between 1945 and 1970, with estimates around 93% in the late 1980s. In 1987, about 34 percent of secondary-school graduates attended institutions of higher education, one of the highest rates in the world. Government expenditure on education rose from 220 billion won in 1975 to 3.76 trillion won by 1986. This equated to an increase from 2.2 percent of GNP to 4.5 percent.

After General Chun Doo-hwan took power in 1980, the Ministry of Education's reforms increased higher education opportunities for the general population – expanding enrollment and attempting "to make the system fairer".

The 1980s and 1990s marked an era of democratization and economic prosperity in South Korea, partly due to the "education fever". In 1991, for the first time in thirty years, the country elected provincial and city councils in order to localize education. Leaders like Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung were able to enact major overhauls to the education system in order to accommodate democratization through methods like abolishing on-campus ROTCS training and political mobilization of students, legalization of teacher unions, and removing anti-communist texts. The MOE began to shift away from a uniform curriculum, by allowing school boards to implement some minor variations in instructional content. Literacy became virtually universal in South Korea while it rose up in international ranks in math and science, especially.

Despite South Korea's democratization, traditional and Confucian values remained very strong. Overall, the huge strides in educational development came at the cost of intense pressure among students, high suicide rates, and family financial struggles through investment in schooling and private tutoring. However, Korea is shifting away from fully academic-based education to competency-based education.

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