Educational reform most urgent for Korea

This is the tenth in the "Letters to President Yoon" series The Korea Times has organized to convey policy recommendations in open letters from politicians, scholars and experts to President Yoon Suk-yeol following his May 10 inauguration. ― ED.

By Eugene Lee

Dear Mr. President,

First of all, please accept my congratulations and my sincere wishes for a successful term.

After taking the burden of the election race off your shoulders, you might be thinking, "So, what now?" or "How can I make my mark?" And no doubt, for better or worse, your name will go down in the history of Korea. With an army of advisers and strongly opinionated people around, you probably will have no lack of new ideas. Allow me to offer few of my personal insights.

For over two decades, I have been observing, researching and pondering the difficulties in growth that South Korea has been facing, especially in recent years. What holds the country back?

To start, the educational system today is a zero-sum game that is literally killing creativity in new generations of people. The system teaches students how to optimize your time and money to get in front of the others by any means possible, if necessary even by cheating.

For a young student today, any of their classmates is a potential adversary in the cutthroat game for a position in the highly competitive job market. Every parent, if given the opportunity, would rather send their kids far abroad, instead of having them grow up in their motherland.

Looking at the business culture, the management style and even the government administration system, one keeps guessing, where is the honor and pride for the country? Why is there no respect toward fellow citizens, and why are people treated like lemmings? Where does it all come from? Even between the elites ― the well-to-do families ― it is nearly impossible to find any good examples of anyone who is truly a success story rooted in the country's traditions and values.

Korea's big businesses are infamous for corruption, tribalism and patronism, with close ties to political circles and the government. Looking at society, one can easily encounter a myriad of other problems as well, going far beyond those that I just mentioned.

But along the way, I also keep hearing stories of a fascinating culture which could be appropriately described as "beautiful." The beauty of that culture is not in its looks for sure, but rather in its traditions and values, consideration and affection ("baeryeo" and "jeong" in Korean), toward others. In the old days, when times were hard during famine, the rich would reportedly distribute rice to the farmers so that they could survive the hardship.

This culture with consideration and wisdom at its core went far beyond its borders. If we explore the times of the Silla Kingdom, we find unique traditions of respect and coexistence with other kingdoms. Some say that ideas of statehood then dealt with issues of state security with neighboring kingdoms long before Europe's Westphalian notion of sovereignty.

What happened? How did we lose all those traditions? Were they lost? The answer is no, they weren't lost ― rather, they were taken away and replaced with a pseudo-culture. I am talking about the colonization of Korea in the previous century, which left the country deeply scarred and the echoes of which can be seen in in the issues of today.

I am not against anyone ― I am against the concept of colonization and the institution of the colony itself. Be it in Africa, India or Korea, colonization has always been about plundering everything from everyone to the last drop of existence. For the people of those colonized countries, it was simply enslavement with a deeply dehumanizing, culture-destroying, soul-wrecking experience. And as I see it, the issues of Korea today are rooted in its colonial past.

For example, the top national university of today was officially established as a modern institution during the colonial days. At the time, the purpose of the institution was to create an army of pawns for the colonizer to suppress the population. After liberation, when the provisional American government hardly bothered itself with any changes and took existing systems and hastily employed them to build the new nation, the university was made into the leading one.

The culture and tradition that were bred at the university then persisted and evolved into pseudo symbols of success that are still being propagated in education, civil service, legislature, politics and many other spheres.

For example, the culture of "gapjil," a perpetuated sense of superiority and entitlement built on the abuse of power by people against those in a weaker position, taken from the colonial times, often passed down through generations, is a concept often taught as a management style to future government or business leaders at leading universities. Relatedly, corruption and plagiarism have replaced virtue, honor and integrity.

In my eyes, Korea is a big country ― and do not get me wrong, I am not delusional about the country's size ― Korea is big in its culture, in its history and in its traditions. It is bigger than some countries in the region. It is able to change and reform itself, embrace other countries and lead and drive the region and even the world. Your summit with the U.S. President Joe Biden few days ago, proves exactly that once again.

Even if it is physically small, Korea is now being treated with the respect that it deserves, as an equal, as it should be. Those big arrangements and projects, like the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), aren't really something new. Korea had relations with the region as far back as the Kingdom of Gaya and the period of the Three Kingdoms.

Today it only means a larger and a deeper scale of cooperation with more players. The U.S. treats South Korea as a bastion of democracy in Asia, and it is true that the tradition of democracy has deep historical roots in Korea. The U.S. needs South Korea. And I will not underestimate it ― the whole world needs Korea.

So, Mr. President, I hope you hear me. You got your chance! Use your time to your utmost and make the country even bigger. You know what I mean.

Sincerely,
Eugene Lee

The writer (mreulee@gmail.com) is an adjunct professor at the Graduate School of Governance at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul. Specializing in international relations and governance, his research and teaching focus on national and regional security, international development, government policies and Northeast and Central Asia.