By Oh Young-jin
Staff Reporter

What are the key differences between current middle school students and the ones 20 years ago?

As widely expected from a more prevalent liberal mood in today's society and ever-fierce competition to enter better schools, today's students are less regulation-bound and rely more on private lessons, according to research made public Monday.

The research conducted by the Korea Educational Development Institute (KEDI) from 1988 to 2008, points out that students now talk more among themselves in class and pay less attention to the teacher.

It also showed that they were taking more private lessons, especially language, math and English - the most important subjects in terms of portion to overall score for the standardized college scholastic tests.

Details of the research will be made available today at a seminar in Seoul National University.

In 1988, about 21 percent of surveyed middle school students took private lessons in one subject while about 20 percent took lessons in two. Most of their lessons were piano, arts or other extracurricular activities.

Twenty years later, just about every student takes private lessons on at least one subject. More specifically, about 28 percent go to "hagwons," or private learning institutes, for Korean language lessons, 50 percent for English and 51 percent for math. Obviously, some students take more than one subject.

In terms of concentration, 13 percent said that they chatted with other students in class in 1988, while now the percentage comes close to 50 percent.

The survey compared 2,399 students in Seoul 20 years ago with 1,216 students last year.

An increased reliance on out-of-school privat lessons and a more liberal attitude among students are widely seen as a contributing factor to the so-called collapse of the classroom. The phenomenon is so acute that teachers condone students sleeping during class, apparently presuming that they study at hagwon the previous night.

foolsdie@koreatimes.co.kr