Education in South Korea

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Education in South Korea

Ministry of Education (South Korea)
National education budget (2016)
Budget	4.6% of GDP[1]
General details
Primary languages	Korean
Literacy
Total	100%
Male	100%
Female	100%
Primary	3.3 million[2]
Secondary	4.0 million
Post secondary	3.6 million
Attainment
Secondary diploma	98.0%[3][6][7]
Post-secondary diploma	69.8%[3][4][5]

Education in South Korea is provided by both public schools and private schools. Both types of schools receive funding from the government, although the amount that the private schools receive is less than the amount of the state schools.^[8]

South Korea is one of the top-performing OECD countries in reading, literacy, mathematics and sciences with the average student scoring about 519, compared with the OECD average of 493, which ranks South Korean education at ninth place in the world.^[9][10] The country has one of the world's highest-educated labour forces among OECD countries.^[11][12] South Korea is well known for its high standards about education, which has come to be called "education fever".^{[13][14][15][16]} The nation is consistently ranked amongst the top for global education.

In South Korean society, the topic of higher education holds great significance, being seen as a cornerstone of life in the country. Education is considered a top priority for South Korean families, as success in education serves as a crucial ingredient for channeling one's social mobility to ultimately improve one's socioeconomic position.^[17][18] Academic success is often a source of familial pride and societal esteem, as many individuals see success in education as the primary driver of upward social mobility and the gateway into the middle class. Graduating from a top university is the ultimate distinctive and distinguishing marker of prestige, societal recognition, high socioeconomic status, promising marriage prospects, and a path to a prestigious and respectable white-collar professional occupation.^[19] Many parents hold high educational expectations for their children starting from a young age, as such parents actively emphasize high academic achievement by actively monitoring their children's academic performance, ensuring that their children do well in school and earn top grades in order to enroll in the nation's most esteemed universities. To uphold the family honor and tradition, many children are expected to go to a top university and pursue a prestigious white collar professional occupation as their future career of choice. Starting from a young age, an average child's life revolves around education as the parental demands to succeed academically is deeply ingrained from an early age. Students are faced with immense pressure to succeed academically from their parents, teachers, peers and society. This is largely a result of a society that has excessively overstressed an enormous premium on the importance of going to university, as those lacking formal university education often face social prejudice and significant life-long consequences such as lower socioeconomic status, diminished marriage prospects and low probabilities of securing a respected career path.^[20]

In 2016, South Korea spent 5.4 percent of its GDP on education – 0.4 percentage points above the OECD average.^[4] A strong investment in education, militant drive and passion to achieve academic success has helped the resource poor country rapidly grow its economy over the past 70 years from the effects of the Korean War.^[21] South Korea's zeal for education and its students' desires to get into a prestigious university is one of the highest in the world, as the entrance into a top tier higher educational institution leads to a prestigious, secure and well-paid professional white collar job with the government, a bank, or a conglomerate such as Samsung, Hyundai, or LG Electronics.^[22] With incredible pressure placed on children to secure places at the most prestigious universities, its institutional reputation, campus facilities and equipment, endowment, faculty, and alumni networks are strong predictors of future career prospects. The top three universities in South Korea, often referred to as SKY, are Seoul National University, Korea University and Yonsei University.^[2][23][24] Intense competition and pressure to earn the highest grades is deeply ingrained in a child's psyche at a young age.^[24] Yet with few places open at elite universities and an even narrower bandwidth of job openings at big companies, many university graduates are disappointed and are unwilling to lower their expectations with regards to employment prospects with the result of many feeling as though they are underachievers. There is a major cultural taboo attached to those who don't attend university; they face social prejudice and are seen as second-class citizens, resulting in fewer opportunities for employment, improvement of one's socioeconomic position, and prospects for marriage.^[25]

International reception of the South Korean education system is divided. It has been praised for its high test results, its role in ushering in economic development, and creating one of the world's most educated workforces.^[26] South Korea's highly enviable academic performance has gotten the UK to remodel their own curriculums and exams to try to emulate South Korea's militant drive and passion for high educational achievement.^[26] Former U.S. President Barack Obama has also lauded the country's rigorous school system, where over 80 percent of high school graduates enroll in university.^[27] High university entrance rates have created a highly skilled workforce making South Korea both one of the most highly educated countries in the world and one of the highest percentage of citizens with a degree.^[3][4] A large majority of students enroll in some form of tertiary education and leave higher education graduating with a tertiary qualification. In 2017, South Korea ranked fifth for the percentage of 25 to 64-year-olds that have attained tertiary education with 47.7 percent.^[3] 69.8 percent of those aged 25 to 34 years old have completed some form of tertiary education with 34.2 percent of those aged 25 to 64 having attained a bachelor's degree.^[3][4]

In contrast, the system has been criticized for stifling creativity and innovation.^[28][29] Described as intensely and brutally competitive,^[30] the system is often blamed for the country's high suicide rate among those aged 10–19. Various media outlets attribute the nation's high suicide rate on the nationwide anxiety around the country's college entrance exams, which determine the trajectory of students' entire lives and careers.^[31][32] However, suicide rates of those aged 15–19 still remain below those of the United States and Canada.^[33] Former South Korean teacher Se-Woong Koo wrote that the education system amounts to child abuse and that it should be "reformed and restructured without delay".^[34] The system has also been criticized for producing a glut of university graduates competing for a limited number of open jobs, creating an overeducated and underemployed labor force; where in the first quarter of 2013 alone, nearly 3.3 million university graduates were unemployed.^[35] Further criticism has been stemmed from causing labor shortages in various skilled blue collar labor and vocational occupations. This happens because of the negative social stigma associated with vocational careers.^{[20][36][37][38][39][22]}