elect Improve Competitiveness of Schools

By Andrei Lankov

Professor of Kookmin University

The education reform was among the major issues President-elect Lee Myung-bak emphasized during his campaign. There is nothing unusual about it: few nations take education as seriously as Koreans do, and this fact alone makes education a hot political issue.

Indeed, in Korean society admission to a good college virtually guarantees career success.

If a teenager gets accepted to one of the three top universities: Seoul, Korea and Yonsei (collectively known as SKY), his or her upper middle-class future is nearly secured. Admission is highly competitive, and also free from corruption. In line with the centuries-old Confucian tradition, the hard work is the only thing which matters.

However, the work has to be hard indeed. Korean teenagers are made to study with intensity which in English-speaking cultures would be seen as child abuse, pure and simple. Ten hours of daily studies is the norm, and fourteen hours is not exceptional and this level is maintained for few years in row.

These efforts have created a huge industry of cram schools, or hagwon. An estimated 4 percent of the GNP is spent by Koreans on sending their children to these institutions, and prominent hagwon teachers (those whose pupils have high success rate at the SKY universities) command exorbitant fees.

This situation creates manifold problems. Korean parents are not happy about this overload, but they stop at nothing to ensure that their children get into the best colleges available. At the same time, they believe that competition should be fair which means that they want middle and high schools in their country to be as similar as possible. Ideally, all students, irrespective of their inclinations and abilities, should study the same content and pass similar exams.

This egalitarian approach is deeply rooted in Korean culture, and has found its expression in the ``standardization'' policies which continued for decades and greatly intensified under Roh Mo-hyun's administration.

Roh's government wanted to undermine the strict unofficial hierarchy of Korean schools, and also strove to reduce the amount of money Korean families spent on schooling. It failed on both accounts. The SKY primacy remains unchallenged and in 2007 the amount of money the average Korean family spent on cram schools and private lessons every month reached 152,000 won (roughly $170). It was a 32.7 percent increase from 2003 when Roh began his reforms.

Therefore, the new President-elect wants to try something new ― that is, to break with the ``standardization policy.'' Lee Myung-bak plans to open more specialized schools where gifted children, selected through competitive exams, will be able to learn more than the average teenager. He also plans to reduce the significance of the current standardized nation-wide university admittance test, allowing universities to administer their own exams.

These measures will probably improve the quality of education ― at least for the top 10 percent students (``top'' both in terms of their individual ability and their family income). The best students will indeed be able to learn more and develop their skills with greater efficiency, and one should welcome this decision.

However, one should not expect instant success, and the proposed policies are no panacea. It remains to be seen whether Koreans will be willing to sacrifice their long-cherished ideal of equal (read ``similar'') education for everybody, and one cannot doubt that the Left, now in opposition, will have a field day after such a ``non-egalitarian'' reform will start. Indeed, the policy is likely to decrease the chances of children from less affluent families, and will increase education inequality.

It also remains to be seen how the hagwon industry will adjust to the new situation. After all, preparing students for college-administered exams might become every bit as lucrative for the cram schools (and difficult for the kids) as preparing them for the present day standardized tests. Even explaining the peculiarities of exams administered by a particular university might become a lucrative business for private educators. So, the spending on private education will perhaps continue its upward trend.

Unfortunately, nearly all talks about ``reform'' deal with undergraduates and university admission. This might be a hot political issue, but this is not the sole problem of Korean education. While debating the reform of the admission system, Korean legislators and society at large tend to overlook a greater problem ― the quality of college education itself.

Things are not bad at the middle and high-school level. Compared to their peers from other nations, Korean teenagers perform very well, especially when it comes to math and science. At the same time, it is an open secret that Korean universities are not up to world standard. According to the 2007 issue of The Times' World University Ranking, the three most popular Korean schools did not fare too well: Seoul National University was ranked 51st; Yonsei University was ranked 236th; and its eternal rival, Korean University, was the world's 243rd. This is not good news, especially taking into consideration Korea's advanced economic level.

Perhaps, the new administration should pay more attention not to the concerns of the aspiring undergraduate students (and their parents), but to improving the international competitiveness of Korean schools. Professors should be encouraged (and pressed) to publish more, especially in the international peer-reviewed journals and job competition should be made more fair, transparent and, at least formally, open to foreign applicants. The level of PhD research should be raised. The graduates of the ``second-tier'' universities should be at least considered for professorial positions if they have sufficient credentials.

Of course, these issues are not politically attractive, but for an administration which cares about the country's future these measures are probably more important than any another reform of the college admission system. In a long run, raising the level of post-graduate education and university-based research will become a major contribution towards improving Korean international competitiveness ― and this task is clearly seen as urgent by the President-elect.