Korea’s educational system resembles a jungle. Smart 17-year-old Young Hwan Kim, who is dressed in a dark blue school uniform and eyeglasses, says, “There is a lot of competition; you eat and be devoured.
A prestigious all-male high school in northern Seoul has just started a recent early physical education session for children on its baseball field. The sign that reads “Boys, be ambitious” is located across from the nicely pruned trees in the schoolyard. It is a sunny Monday morning. The trees are decorated in autumnal hues. An elderly man rakes the leaves from a park.
Every day at eight in the morning, Kim and his classmates arrive here. to 3:40 p.m. to learn. Many people stay up late to finish their schoolwork because the library is open until 11 p.m. Others take evening classes at hagwons, which are for-profit organizations. One of them is Inchae Ryu, 17, who studies for 12 hours a day in addition to attending extra English classes twice a week.
By the end of November, he will have achieved his objective. The feared Suneung University exam will be taken at that time, and the results will determine which university he can enroll in. Korea’s most renowned universities include Seoul National University, Korea National University, and Yonsei University (Sistek, 2013).
High suicide rate and stress ratio in Korean education
The idea that South Korea’s educational system is to blame for the nation’s high levels of stress, problems with bullying, and the highest rates of suicide in the industrialized world is being expressed more frequently.
The number of students who considered suicide varies. One in eight students had suicidal thoughts in the same year, according to the Korea Health Promotion Foundation, compared to one in four, according to the National Youth Policy Institute of Korea.
The Korea Health Promotion Foundation, the country’s government-run health policy body, said in a statement that Korea has the second-highest rate of youth suicide among OECD members, despite the fact that “youth suicide rates in OECD countries have been falling on average” (Sistek, 2013).
・Current situation in South Korea, where 86% of people have school stress
A recent survey found that high school students in South Korea devote an average of 12 hours a day to their studies and that more than 70% of them “feel guilty” if they take a vacation.
Yonhap reports that the results of a study by the South Korean education NGO Asunaro, which surveyed 6,261 children of various ages, revealed that students there are always concerned about doing their homework and competing with their friends.
The majority of South Korean students continue their education after the final bell, with statistics showing that nearly 97 percent of high school students continue their studies after school. Additionally, 40.2% of high school students indicated they were “forced” to complete hours of independent study, and 67.3% said they reviewed their assignments over the weekends.
Furthermore, high school students in South Korea claimed that they felt pressured to stay up until 10 p.m. They slept, on average, less than six hours a night and struggled to finish their coursework.
According to the poll, South Korean teenagers start their study habits early. After school, about 86 percent of elementary school students and 76 percent of middle school students take private courses. However, the system is having a negative impact on South Korean youth: 86 percent of high school students reported feeling stressed out due to their studies, and 72.8% reported feeling bad if they take a break.
According to a 16-year-old student in Seoul who spoke to the South Korean daily Hankyoreh, she doesn’t get to bed until 1:30 a.m. She claimed that she must review classes until 11 p.m. (Shim, E. 2015).
Korean family relations and culture
Families are incredibly important to Koreans. Family members have a strong sense of loyalty to one another and are committed to preserving their nexus (a trait found in collectivist societies). Families may be so defined in certain traditional or rural social groups that they are seen as having a collective face. As a result, one person’s actions can affect how others see the entire family.
Confucian relationships were structured in a manner that was typical of traditional Korean family systems and strongly emphasized male power. This family paradigm required a husband or father to treat his wife kindly and authoritatively in return for her obedience and loyalty. In return for filial piety, respect, and submission from his children, he would offer guidance and safety. In many houses, he would be seen as the main decision-maker.
Since the Korean War, people have broken away from this hierarchical system in order to adopt modern family relations like those of Australians. The nuclear family is the normal family structure, and children are raised to become more independent as they get older. Although women today hold significantly more status and power in society, the notion of the man as the provider has been maintained to some extent. Parents today share the duty of disciplining their children, when historically it was mostly the father’s job.
The majority of parents want their children to be more successful and educated than they are. As a result, the majority of Korean parents are completely committed to their kids’ success. This is frequently conveyed in a way that places high demands on the child to do well in order to fulfill their parents’ ambitions. There is a lot of pressure on Korean adolescents to succeed in their studies and careers.
This young, highly educated, and technologically sophisticated population has been thoroughly Westernized and, as a result, has grown more individualistic. A breach in familial ideals has emerged as they become less family-centered. Confucian precepts dictate that age determines seniority in the home rather than personal merit or morality. Older people should be valued for their wisdom and cared for by the family, according to filial piety. The younger generation has started to reject these norms in some Korean homes where the older generation requires respect and obedience to be delivered in line with age—the customary manner—causing issues.
However, some Koreans continue to uphold conventional family norms. For instance, many people worship their ancestors many times a year at rituals honoring their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. The notion that Korean children owe their parents an unforgivable debt is honored through this gesture of respect (Hays, 2021).
Daily life of Korean students
One of the major tragedies of the Korean educational system is the fact that children and teenagers study incessantly and have little time left for leisure, relaxation, holidays, or other activities unrelated to school. Some teenagers spend 18 hours a day in school. They study during their downtime in addition to their ten hours of school each day and their attendance at after-school cram sessions. South Korean students are usually overcome with jealousy when they hear stories from American high school students about the time they spend dating, driving about, and working part-time jobs to pay the bills.
In the late 1980s, a college-bound high school student would typically get up early, study for a little bit before class started at 7:30 or 8:00 a.m., attend class until 5:00 p.m., have a quick dinner (often away from home), and then attend evening cramming classes that might last until 10:00 or 11:00 p.m. There was more cramming on Sundays and on holidays. Since examinations they took in high school (approximately once every two or four weeks) were almost as important in determining their admittance to college as the final entrance exams, students had little opportunity to unwind from their study routine. According to a contemporary source, a student needed to memorize 60 to 100 pages of information in order to perform well on these yearly exams. Family and social life in general were sacrificed in order to achieve the ultimate objective of getting into the best institution possible (Cultural Atlas, 2015).
South Korean children are under family pressure to succeed in school.
Schoolchildren face intense peer and familial pressure to do well in class. In order to provide their children with the greatest education possible, parents go to considerable lengths. This used to be particularly true, but it’s now true for both boys and girls. Most Asians, including Koreans, have a long history of honoring academics, valuing education, and viewing it as a means of achieving success and elevating one’s family. My parents are incredibly proud of me, a great Vietnamese student in Los Angeles told Smithsonian magazine. Therefore, even if there is no opportunity for improvement, I must continue to advance. I can sense their strain, too. Simply study; they advise. I am unable to rake the grass, do the dishes, or get a summer job. Their only objective is for me to succeed.
In the New York Times, Se-Woong Koo stated: “In 2008, I taught advanced English grammar to 11-year-olds at a pricey cram school in the affluent Gangnam region of Seoul. Although the kids were focused on their studies, their eyes seemed lifeless. One girl reluctantly raised her hand when I asked the class whether they were happy in this setting to say that she would only be happy if her mother were gone as all her mother knew how to do was nag about her academic performance…I was placed 21st out of 60 kids in my homeroom class on my report card following the first exam in middle school. My mother, who was aware of the terrible atrocities of South Korean education but still worried about my grades, promptly hired a private math tutor for me, and I quickly rose to No. 3 in my homeroom.
Another significant aspect of Korean culture is the importance placed on the family. Many parents believe they have the divinely granted power to choose their children’s fate. A further argument in favor of the continued use of such rigorous child control is the notion that the family is an economic unit. For instance, it is still common to see marriage as an economic transaction between two families. It comes down to productivity, performance, and conformity rather than freedom, autonomy, or enjoyment for children in South Korea (Cultural Atlas, 2015).
・Kids from South Korea Finish Last in Happiness Survey
In a survey on life satisfaction, which included 540,000 15-year-olds from 72 countries, including OECD nations, Korean pupils gave an average score of 6.36 on a scale from zero to ten. In comparison to the OECD average of 7.31, the amount is much lower. Only Turkey performed worse than Korea among the other OECD members. Just nearly half of Korean students, or 53%, say they are “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with their lives, compared to the OECD average of 71 percent. Conversely, 22% of them gave a response of four or lower.
According to a survey conducted in 2014, South Korean kids were the least happy kids in wealthy countries, with the country’s fiercely competitive school system being the main offender. Romania and Poland were the next two least content with their lifestyles among the 30 countries questioned, according to South Korea’s health ministry. Overall, South Korea came in last. In their analysis of more than 4,000 households with children under the age of 18, the ministry concluded that “the most relevant factor to the children’s life satisfaction is academic stress, followed by school violence, internet addiction, negligence, and cyber violence.”
Reference list
Cultural Atlas (2015). South Korean Culture – Family. [online] Cultural Atlas. Available at: https://culturalatlas.sbs.com.au/south-korean-culture/south-korean-culture-family [Accessed 22 June 2023].
Hays, J. (2021). STUDENTS IN SOUTH KOREA: STRESSED, UNHAPPY, STUDYING ALL THE TIME, CHEATING AND BULLYING | Facts and Details. [online] factsanddetails.com. Available at: https://factsanddetails.com/korea/South_Korea/Education_Health_Transportation_Infrastructure/entry-7383.html [Accessed 22 June 2023].
Kamerpower (2022). Korea University Acceptance Rate For Foreign Students 2023: Tuition, Admission. [online] KamerpowerTM. Available at: https://kamerpower.com/korea-university-acceptance-rate-for-foreign-students-2022-tuition-admission/#:~:text=University%20(SKKU).- [Accessed 23 June 2023].
Shim, E. (2015). 86 percent of South Korean students suffer from schoolwork stress. [online] UPI. Available at: https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2015/08/26/86-percent-of-South-Korean-students-suffer-from-schoolwork-stress/8191440611783/ [Accessed 22 June 2023].
Sistek, H. (2013). Korea student suicide. [online] www.aljazeera.com. Available at: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2013/12/8/south-korean-students-wracked-with-stress [Accessed 22 June 2023].
