It's public education that needs mending
By Chung Jae-hun
Nowadays, we Korean people often hear news reports that the snowballing household debt, caused in large part by private education, is having a bad influence on both the birthrate and the economy. In turn, the widening gap between the rich and the poor seems to have led to greater disparity in education, which worsens over time.
Many Koreans are convinced that the private education sector is to blame for this vicious circle and that they should remove it from students' lives to help make their school life less burdensome and stabilize household economies.
However, this somewhat hasty conclusion that overlooks the reality facing the nation’s educational system is striking a fatal blow to the private education business, which creates a number of jobs for social freshmen who have just graduated from universities. The actual reason for the prevalence of private education doesn't lie in the private institutes or hagwon themselves. Let's look at some practical aspects of the current education problems nationwide.
First of all, the prosperity of the private education business arises from low-quality public education, which encouraged the private education sector to serve as an alternative or countermeasure. Specifically, Korean education focuses mainly on the college entrance examination, from which many different forms of private education benefit, gradually enlarging their size and filling the needs of parents who are not content with public education.
What's more, such an inflated market of private education has been fueled by the government's biased education policy which puts more emphasis on the elitist education system (represented by the expansion of special-purpose schools and early admission) than anything else.
Major candidates in the ongoing presidential race stress that they are going to remove private institutions throughout the nation, which I think is due to popular pressure rather than their own education philosophy.
However, the necessity of private education should not be ignored in that it can provide students with quality teaching - more personalized specialized study _ something which the public educational system cannot offer. Besides, the current college entrance system is too complicated and difficult for students to handle only with the help of public education, and therefore they need ``another" helper with thorough knowledge of the reality of our educational environment and the ability to cope with it.
When we say private education, it does not just refer to supplementary lessons on school subjects but also to many other classes such as music, art, physical education and many more. If such subjects are removed from students' additional learning programs as a result of candidates’ election pledges, it would infringe on students’ rights to enhance their aptitude for learning and future careers as well. Therefore education authorities should modify their points of view on major pending issues facing our education system.
In this vein, I, as one of numerous hagwon instructors, would like to make some suggestions to improve the current situations. Above all, the government should come up with a remedy to rectify problems in the college entrance system, which is too intricate and extensive.
That is to say, the system needs to be more simplified for test-takers to make preparations for themselves. If so, students will depend less on private learning and spend less money and energy on it.
In addition, the authorities concerned should raise the quality level of public education rather than trying to eradicate private institutions or cram schools nationwide. If and when public education becomes competitive enough, there will be no need to intentionally reduce the private education sector, which will streamline itself by the principle of the survival of the fittest.
Last but not least, the next government should enact a law to obligate companies' pay systems to be commensurate with employees' practical qualifications rather than academic background, which will help to dispel widespread belief that only graduates of prestigious universities should take it all.
The writer is an instructor at a private educational institution in Busan. His email address is wowng@daum.net.