Saving Public Education
By Kim See-bong
Our public education is in trouble. It is losing its place to private education. And the government blames thriving private education for the fall of the former. They don't care why it is prospering despite the government's strenuous efforts to curb it.
And as a way of putting public education back on a normal track, they always resort to a crackdown on hagwon, and dismiss them as obstacles in the way of normalizing public education. But private education has been successfully complementing public education.
Accordingly, booming private education in Korea is a consequence of the natural reaction to unsatisfactory public education, which fails to meet the demands of the educated.
Schools have long lost the prestige of developing humans, both academically and humanely. They turned themselves into institutions that transfer only knowledge, and disregard their first role of cultivating whole persons for life after school. Knowledge and information are the only items they have in mind for students. So what makes them different from private institutions?
It is here that private education intervenes. The sector specializes in helping students acquire as much information as possible and as quickly as possible, through crash courses and all sorts of tests. This being the case with both institutions, schoolteachers can be no match for hagwon instructors.
This is because the former group is employed and paid equally regardless of how well they teach, with their job security firmly guaranteed as long as they do not make serious mistakes. They have no competition, whereas the latter groups are close to self-employed. They know as soon they lose their marketability, everything is kaput. The more efficiently they develop and sell themselves, the more money they make.
The best of treatment makes the best of teachers, and the best treatment includes good remuneration and other fringe benefits. That, when coupled with fierce competition among teachers, will produce even better teachers who will serve as a momentum to normalize our public education.
Just like the way high-paying jobs of medical doctors and lawyers attract the best talent, teaching can become a coveted job if teachers are treated likewise.
So it is imperative to make a more competitive situation for both aspiring and existing teachers, by reminding them that their job requires constant study and academic devotion to deserve better pay and greater respect.
Second, relieve teachers of all the additional burdens other than teaching and preparation. They should be given enough time to devote to studying to motivate students. They should be beacons to draw students by kindling their intelligent curiosity by first motivating themselves.
Again, the best way to provide highly qualified teachers ― both academically and personally ― and stop them turning to out-of-campus cramming schools is to treat them properly and ask them to make efforts to deserve such rewards.
The writer is principal of Polyglot Day School In Bundang, Gyeonggi Province. He can be reached at glsacademy@dreamwiz.com.