Has Koreans Education Fervor Gone Too Far?
By Kang Hyun-kyung
Staff Reporter
In early February, small groups of women in their early 40s sipped coffee at a Coffee Bean near the Daechi subway station in southern Seoul, sharing tips on winning strategies to help their children get into top-tier universities.
These stay-at-home moms had given rides to their high-school aged children to a nearby private academy in the morning and were hanging out, waiting for the classes to end.
This snapshot illustrates that the roles of some stay-at-home mothers have evolved from being quiet supporters to career coaches who are actively involved in helping their children learn.
In an interview with The Korea Times Wednesday, education consultant Jo Nam-o offered a clue to two new archetypes that have appeared recently in the education market.
"Some moms make study schedules for their children to follow when taking private courses," he said.
"These moms drive their children to take courses taught by highly sought-after instructors and squeeze courses in high demand into their children's busy academic schedules."
Jo, 32, runs Study Code, an education consultancy providing middle and high school students with coaching programs to help them improve their learning skills. The consultancy is located near Daechi Station, a mecca for private institutes.
Education Shopaholics
The other emerging archetype is the "online shopaholic," signaling that the fervor for education of some Koreans is headed in the wrong direction.
"Some high school students search the Web site to enroll in online courses offered by star instructors. Some of them go too far, signing up for much more than they can take. I saw one high school student who bought courses worth 7 million won in total," Jo said.
Depending on the courses, consumers pay an average 100,000 won to sign up for one course. This indicates the student cited by Jo purchased approximately 70 online courses.
Asked if excessive investment in private tutoring and online courses leads to admission to prestigious universities, Jo, who majored in computer science at Seoul National University (SNU), shook his head.
Over the past four years, Jo, along with other SNU graduates, interviewed 3,121 SNU students in order to find patterns in elite students' winning study habits during their high school years.
"We found that the nation's top university students spent on average three hours daily carefully studying what they learned in class and trying to read between the lines," he said.
"This is a distinct contrast to students who showed relatively weak academic performance in high school as they spent fewer hours reviewing what they learned in class."
Jo characterized those admitted to SNU as smart consumers who know what extra courses they need and take them, while refraining from squandering their time and money for courses that are unnecessary.
"In contrast, many students who performed poorly in high school relied heavily on private tutoring," he said.
"They spend so many hours and energy finding and taking private courses that they were burned out at night, finding little time to review what they had learned."
Last year, a government think tank released data showing the relationship between household spending on private education and scores earned on the scholastic aptitude test.
The survey found that there was no direct link between private education and test scores when it came to the subjects of Korean literature and English. But it said private tutoring did have a positive effect on students' scores in math.
The results betrayed the widespread perception of the role of private education in students' performance on tests.
Four out of 10 judges who were appointed here last year were found to have attended either a foreign language high school or science academy. Education experts cited those elite high schools as being responsible for rising household spending on private education.
Jo indicated that it is parents' blind investment on the future of their children that is responsible for the soaring bills.
"Our investigation found that 88 percent of SNU students took private lessons, but as I said, they picked what they needed and did not overinvest," he said.