 Education, Science and Technology Minister Ahn Byong-man says education policies will support well-performing students so that they can do even better, and guarantee government assistance for those who lag behind. / Korea Times |
Shift Away From Equalized Education System Is First Step to Boost Public SchoolingAhn Byong-man, Minister
Ministry of Education, Science and Technology
As a key policy, the Korean government has been annually expanding investment in public education over the decades. However, public satisfaction for school education still remains rather low. Many students continue to rely on private tutoring, and a growing number of youths are seeking overseas studies for English proficiency. Problems lie not only in the high rate of private education expenditure, but also in the fact that a widening gap is found between the levels of student performance.
As may be assumed, such outcomes of the past ten years or so are due to an outdated emphasis on the concept of educational ``equalization.'' February 25th marks the completion of the Lee Myung Bak administration's first year in office. Since its inception, it has been pushing ahead with an innovative strategy to move away from the previous uniform and equalized education system and brought a greater volume of autonomy and diversity to education.
The overarching goal set forth in this pursuit is to ``support well-performing students so that they may do even better, while guaranteeing government assistance for those that lag behind.'' In the course of the past year, the government has established a viable policy framework and expanded infrastructure to suit that goal. According to internal estimates, the year's policy developments have gained rather encouraging responses from the public.
One of the major initiatives laid out last year is to delegate a large portion of educational rights from the central government to local education offices and to reform guidelines governing school regulations as a means to provide individual schools with the utmost autonomy in pursuing self-led changes for advancement.
An innovative ``high school diversification plan'' has also been introduced so that public education may better meet the varying demands of students and parents. Under the plan, public board high schools have been set up for the purpose of raising the quality of education in agricultural and fishing villages and meister high schools have been designed to help vocational high school graduates find suitable and successful career opportunities without requiring higher education.
Backed by good social reception and agreement, the government is currently under a smooth process of designating schools that will introduce the two new systems, the high schools of which are set to launch full operation in 2010. The autonomous private high school system, which will initiate its selection of schools this year, is also expected to give a boost to schools' self-led efforts for the provision of specialized education for gifted students. As for university admission policies, the government has delegated all rights regarding higher education admission to the Korean Council for University Education and aiming to grant full autonomy by 2013.
As a new model of diversified student screening, the ``admission officer system'' has seen activation over the year. It is designed to encourage universities to select students who possess high potential and nurture them into human resources of excellence, rather than focusing only on their academic scores at the time of selection. Schemes have also been put in place to address the prevailing challenge of curbing private education expenditure and bridging the education gap between schools.
One particular success is the ``after-school program, aiming to absorb private education demands within regular school boundaries. Thanks to a rigorous development of different programs and a free provision scheme for underprivileged students, the rate of after-school participation grew to more than 50 percent of all Korean students in 2008.
School Information Disclosure
During a recent visit to a middle school, I was able to confirm the effects of after-school programs. At this particular school, nearly all the students, including the top performers, had quit private tutoring for after-school studies, which have brought about an overall improvement in grades and performance. Building on such achievements, the government plans to reinforce tailored education contents for after-school teaching and introduce a ``daylong child care system'' at primary schools that will enable students to remain under school care until nighttime this year.
Much has been done to improve public English language education, an area that tends to generate one of the largest volumes of private expenditure. The current government has established a system to recruit instructors who will exclusively teach English speaking at schools. Curricular revision has taken place to increase English classes by one hour per week at the primary school level and steps are being taken to develop a national English language proficiency test at a competitive level commensurate with the Japanese national English exam.
As a means of checking up on the overall academic performance of school-aged children, the government is also conducting an evaluation of Korean students every year. Based on the results of the annual performance, the government offers intensive support for under-performing students, such as academic promotion programs, assistant teacher guidance and university student mentoring.
One of the most important aims of recent efforts is that schools and teachers demonstrate strong accountability in every area. The ``school information disclosure system'' and the ``comprehensive teacher evaluation system'' are two representative schemes devised for this purpose. Starting in late 2008, every school nationwide started to publicize a wide range of school information and statistics online, keeping students and parents well informed.
Meanwhile, the teacher evaluation system purports to raise teachers' professional capacity by conducting a multi-faceted assessment of their instruction and academic administration, with peer teachers, students and parents taking part. The launching of the system is planned for 2010.
If 2008 saw the establishment of a future-oriented policy framework, the year 2009 will be invested in practically and effectively implementing new policies at school sites so that the public may actually see for themselves how Korean education is improving. Civil servants will make more frequent school visits to directly assess the opinions of teachers, students and parents.
The interaction is necessary if policy makers are to clearly understand the difficulties of policy execution and improve conditions for their implementation. There is also a need for collaboration among the central government, local governments, teachers and parents if policies are to actually bring progressive changes to schools, curricula and the whole arena of teaching and learning.
In only four decades or so, Korea has risen from destitute poverty brought about by Japanese colonial rule and the ruins of the Korean War to become one of the world's major economic powers. As many acknowledge, the key driving force behind such a surge was the power of ``human resources.'' Today, Korea is again in the midst of a critical economic crisis. But we know from history that this is a country capable of creating new opportunities out of crises by drawing from the force of its people. It is in this sense that we consider it a most significant task to nurture human resources of excellence through quality education whereby we may overcome current challenges and prepare for the future.
Minister Ahn devoted most of his life to the academic field as a professor and president of universities before becoming education minister. The 68-year-old minister twice headed Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. During his leadership at there, he established foreign language high schools and a cyber university. After the Lee Myung-bak administration was launched this year, he was named a likely candidate for Prime Minister. He has served as chairman of the Presidential Council for Future and Vision and president of the Korea-U.S. Education & Culture Foundation. Having graduated from Seoul National University with a degree in public administration, Ahn obtained an M.A. in law from the same university and a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Florida in the United States. He is married to Park Chung-hee, with whom he has a son and a daughter. |
