Why I hate Korea's educational system

Jun 25 (edited) in Share LinkedIn & Opportunities

Korea is known for its K-pop, dramas, and movies. Though I am thankful that many people think positively of the country I live in, I came to realize that people don't know how much 'education' is torturing students in Korea.

< Hagwons>

Heard of 'Hagwons'? They are specialized, private for-profit institutes that students go after school, and students stay in there for time ranging from 50 minutes to 6 hours. There are about 89000 hagwons in Korea, and most likely you will see them everywhere beside residential homes. Basically, hagwon is a mini school. But the things that students are taught go beyond what public schools teach; for example, there are many many middle schoolers who finished the highschool curriculum, all thanks to hagwons.

At first glance, hagwons might not look bad. But please read on. Those who are sent to hagwons were probably forced by his/her parent. From the students I have met, all of them hated going to hagwons. But their parents forced them anyways. Even if you are passionate about learning, you probably won't want to go to hagwons. A highschoool student's schedule might look like this: after school, go to english, math, Korean literature, and Science hagwon, go home, do hagwon and school hw until 2AM, sleep for less than 4 hours. Nobody, nobody likes this... But the students have to adapt to this forcing, creativeless education.

Hagwons are so normalized in Korea, most parents send their child to at least one hagwon. They think that it for their children to send them to hagwons. I would say many parents in Korea, and other Asian countries have a tendency to be jealous; they have hightened awarness about others. This is actually proven in a study; 10 Korean and American parents were scanned by FMRI. They were to engage in a small game, where either, they were given points or the other player lost points. For Korean parents, their reward part of the brain was activated when the other lost points. For the American parents, they felt rewarded when they themselves got more points. So basically, Korean parents feel better when Others suffer, get sad when Others are praised. This is very much shown in how parents treat their child; they see them as mere products to show off, a mean of comparison rather than someone to love. I mean parents do love their child, but their jealousy takes control of them time to time.

Now, why do parents care about education so much? The main reason is college. Because Korea takes college seriously, and colleges pick students based on grades rather than extra curriculars, the parent's main focus is to achieve higher grades. To do this, they send their child to hagwons. Furthurmore, another explanation can be the jealousy part I said earlier. They want their child to be better than others. They want their child to have higher scores, higher grades. And since hagwons are seen as normal things, parents are likely to send their child to hagwons.

Now, to talk about the system, and to sum everything up, first, colleges focus too much on grades. This leads to jealous parents to do everything for grades&tests, forcing their child to go to hagwons. This tortures students, and is evident as some describe hagwons as hell. But the thing is, hagwons are legal, and is accepted as normal by many many people in Korea. This kind of education should not continue, as it is just depriving students of the freedom and the actual skills you need for life(such as communication, or leadership skills). Actually, the government became more aware of the hagwon problem, and dropped the killer question from the CSAT(another test score needed for college in Korea).

This problematic behavior continues in universities too. In an interview of a student from Seoul National University, the 'harvard of Korea', most of the student studied only for grads, only for tests, and took notes of every single thing the professor was saying. How will this help the students in the future? You should ask questions, be curious, skeptic. There are related studeis, one by a Michigan Univ professor, about the different studying methods by Korean students and Michigan Univ students.

I hope that you could be aware of the system that Korean students should go through. I am thankful that I am not one of these students, and since my dream university is on the states, I focus on projects, writing, or club activities. Also, please take in mind that not ALL parents are like this. As much as there are these types of parents, there are also kind parents.

Could you share the educational system in your country?
Share your thoughts on it?
Is the community, or the government doing anything about the educational system?

I am planning to make a club(international) about this, to decrease the suffering of students from these educational systems. If you could, please give ideas, or tips on my club.

Thank you for reading!

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