David Tizzard is a professor at Seoul Women’s University, holds a PhD in Korean Studies, and hosts the Korea Deconstructed podcast. He has lived and worked in Seoul for more than two decades. Reach him at datizzard@swu.ac.kr.
I won the lottery in Korea
By David Tizzard
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By David A. Tizzard
Unfortunately, despite what the title might suggest, I will not be spending this weekend gorging on ginseng and imported whisky. Instead, I will be stressing over how to best put aside the money required for my son's pre-school education.
The lottery my family won was a school placement one. A system in which places at educational facilities are decided based on luck: Your very own taste of the roulette table in a country in which gambling is banned.
This often takes place with a selection of orange and white plastic balls being placed in a closed box. Parents of the various children then gather nervously to attend the event.
Here, they will be tasked with drawing a single ball from the box and ultimately deciding whether their child will be admitted to the kindergarten or school with their friends and peers.
A typical situation might see roughly 60 balls in a box, with 30 orange ones and 30 white ones, thus giving participants a one-in-two chance, as well as a very drawn-out and stressful process.
In other circumstances, families are presented with 12 balls ― only two of which spell failure. Would it not be worse to have not been chosen from one when the odds are stacked so favorably?
One can only imagine the pressure placed on a parent tasked with choosing the ball from a box. What if you pick the wrong one? What if you pick the right one?
I have no doubt that there has been many a bottle of soju consumed on the evenings following these events, in both celebration and frustration.
Prayers are often voiced in harmony alongside shrieks of relief as well as groans of disappointment. A cacophony of futures blessed and cursed sung in unison.
Parents will also tell stories about how other attendees either remained dignified and accepting of the system despite seeing their child not admitted to the kindergarten and thus forced to look elsewhere for education or, conversely, cause what only could be described in polite company as a 'ruckus.'
The origins of this, as with much of the Korean life that unfolds around us today, are in the late 1960s and under the oft-sunglassed eyes of ex-President Park Chung-hee.
Middle-school entrance exams were abolished and replaced with a system in which students from the same district would be entered into a lottery to determine which school they would attend. These were known as “equalization zones” and were designed to reduce the disparity between the successful and wealthy and the less privileged.
Obviously there are arguments for and against such policies: People will point to the noble tradition of providing equal opportunity to all regardless of wealth. Others will suggest that it dilutes the educational process.
Irrespective of the merits and demerits, this lottery system of educational placement has continued until today and affects a variety of school entrance processes at many different ages.
With South Korea embracing the 21st century as well as many of its other international counterparts, there are also more specific procedures in place designed to help those that might otherwise struggle. These can include giving earlier opportunities to single-parent families, those with a very low income, or from a multicultural background.
It has also seen the system go online with 60 percent of private kindergartens reportedly using the government operated “Go First School” website. This was designed for parents unable to attend offline lottery events because of work and allow them to complete the process remotely.
A seemingly great idea. Yet parents have reported applying to four kindergartens and being refused to all of them. And they didn't even get to see an orange or yellow ball ― just an email. Moreover, users visiting the website often have to wait for extended periods as up to 4,000 other people are in line before them also trying to connect.
With the national birthrate low and falling, one cannot help but feel that all this adds an extra element of stress and competition to those with young children, particularly as everything seems so beyond one's control.
Both conservative and progressive governments here have adopted various policies at the national level designed to encourage young families to have children. These range from financial benefits, tax breaks and houses, to soft power cultural promotion through television shows and celebrity endorsements.
And yet despite the low birthrate and all that is being said about helping young people, many parents are still struggling to send their children to a decent quality daycare program.
Of course, not everyone can go to the best school. It wouldn't be the best school if that were the case. Moreover, we typically inhabit a world in which simple problems and solutions do not exist regardless of what many public intellectuals might claim.
Rather, there are tradeoffs. Society makes one thing better only by, in-turn, making something else worse off. Perhaps drastically so.
What the tradeoff is here for the South Korean people and the future generation I'm not quite sure. That is a question for them to address together.
I am, however, going to have a drink to celebrate my son being lucky enough to have been drawn in the lottery. Start worrying about saving the necessary money tomorrow. And then prepare to do it all again next year when my daughter turns three.
David Tizzard (datizzard@swu.ac.kr) is an assistant professor at Seoul Women's University.