I stumbled upon a fascinating video news clip over at Reuters today. Unlike in the U.S., educators in South Korea can make incredibly good money. How good? Reuters reports that some make as much as $4 million per year. One tutor it features commands a salary higher than almost all baseball players in the country. South Korean parents are willing to pay more for tutors, due to a cultural emphasis on education that the U.S. lacks.
First, here's the video clip from Reuters:
This cultural difference can also be seen through education rigor itself. In the clip, Reuters notes:
South Korean teens are often in the classroom between 10 and 12 hours per day.
Compare that to the U.S., where most teens are in the classroom 6 to 8 hours per day. South Korea simply has a greater demand for good education than the U.S. That's why these supplemental tutors who offer online classes thrive.
So what's our problem? We just don't care about education as much. If we did, economics would do the rest. We only have ourselves to blame for the lack of demand for good education in the U.S. If we demanded it, more pay for teachers would follow. And so would better teachers and more educated youth.
I'm curious as to the prevalence of union (and union-esque) jobs in South Korea, any idea?
Good question. First, note that the clip presented specifically seems to feature the ultra-talented teachers who also work as tutors. Most teachers are not millionaires, but still do relatively well compared to most countries. Another thing to note is that being a teacher is generally a very well-respected job in South Korea -- probably more so than in the U.S.
I'm hardly an expert on South Korean teachers' unions, but if you trust Wikipedia (the source of all things), it says that they'd been trying to unionize teachers for some time there, but the Ministry of Education won't hear of it. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_South_Korea#Teachers_union)
The difference, of course, is with the incentive to become a teacher. In South Korea, if you're talented, and become an educator, there's a possibility you could become a millionaire. Though most don't, in the U.S. no such possibility really even exists for talented educators.
On a recent business trip to Seoul I was speaking with a Korean woman I work with whose teen-aged daughter is at school from 8am until 10pm 5 days a week. Once school is let out, she immediately goes for tutoring/study sessions until 10pm, at which time her father drives to the school to pick her up(a hour away from their home!) and brings her home after midnight.
I was absolutely incredulous, even the most overachieving, ivy league-obsessed families I have met wouldn't do this for a few days much less regularly.
I agree that U.S. doesn't care about education as much, I wonder however how much of the need for tutors is because the education in school is not satisfactory to most parents. Why not lengthen the actual school time? Why not pay teachers better vs. having tutors?
Growing up in W. Africa, I had a tutor at home after school and on vacations and part of it was because my parents were not content with the education that I was getting at one of the best elementary schools in the country. I was in a boarding school for secondary school, students would often pay senior students out of their own pocket to tutor them.
I guess we just don't want it that badly here in the U.S.
Is a culture where kids are hypercompetetive and in school for that many hours a day necessarily a desirable outcome, though? Personally, having done the long school days + private tutoring/supplemental school stuff in Japan, I don't think it's a desirable outcome or a model to aspire to.
I wonder how the schools in poor neighborhoods do. Are the students graduating and moving on to college? Is the service industry in South Korea all adult retirees and immigrants?
I'm skeptical.
This will sound unbelievable--it certainly was to me, when I found out--but students in public high schools can only fail if they do not show up for school. Even if they score less than 50% on all their tests, as long as their attendance record is fine they will move to the next level. In my poor neighborhood, a vast majority will not go to college. Maybe around 10%.
Daniel, your analysis completely ignores that Americans are unable to act on their demand. It's a learned helplessness, as the only thing most Americans can do to change schools is to sell their house and move to a new town. Hardly free entry and exit. And then there's the union work rules and administrative expenses.
If privately held, non-unions schools with overlapping jurisdiction were competing for voucher funding, and we STILL didn't have the same results as South Korea, maybe then you'd have a point. But the teachers' unions and their bought legislators have made supply, demand and competition all but impossible in America.
Excellent point. But doesn't that say something about demand? If teachers' unions are constraining educational excellence, isn't the fact that we allow them to exist proof enough that we must not place education above the unions' existence? After all, we could always elect politicians that make teachers' unions illegal and allow competition via voucher if there was a strong desire to do so.
I would also still argue that, even with unions, it's pretty clear the demand for education is lower in the U.S. than what it seems to be in South Korea. It's certainly a more intense educational experience there, and unions only have control over what goes on inside the classroom here, right? Parents and students don't take nearly the initiative they could outside the classroom. This clip, in fact, relates mostly to tutor services, which are extracurricular.
I'm a high school English teacher in a vocational school poor area. Most students do indeed spend an absurd amount of time in school, in addition to time spent at various after school academies. The typical day for a Korean high school student is arrive at school at 7, leave at 5:30, and go to an academy until 10 or so, sometimes 11 (though there are laws forbidding academies from holding late classes, many academies choose to skirt this law). They may have an hour or two break in between school and academy, but for the most part, this is not an exaggeration. However, this telling does not give you the whole picture.
At public high schools, it's not uncommon for classes to be canceled for trivial reasons. These include skirt measuring for girl students (skirts have to conform to a certain length, and so classtime is consumed in checking each class), practicing jump rope and tug of war for the yearly Sports Day competition -- a kind of fun, outdoor activity most Korean schools have (seriously, classes were canceled at least twice because the students had to prep for the event), among various other head-scratching reasons.
Another thing to keep in mind is that Korea, much like many other Asian countries, is a presentation culture. Appearance often takes priority over substance. So while many students will delight in telling me that they studied all Sunday and did nothing else, "studying," I've come to learn, means doing any activity as long as there's an open textbook in front of the student. Studying could mean playing video games, talking on the phone, watching tv, hanging out with friends, etc.
This is not to dismiss the absurd amount of time students spend at school. It really is absurd. But, much like their adult counterparts, school is the de facto social environment. Their friends are there with them at school, they have computer labs readily available, that kind of thing. As I type this, it is now summer vacation for Korean public schools. Nevertheless, there are students hanging out despite having no particular summer classes. School really is a fusion between an educational and social environment.
For adult Koreans, work functions in much the same way. Many Koreans proudly point out their long hours. What to keep in mind, though, is that the workplace is both a work and a social environment. Koreans are very close with their colleagues, and the amount of work done particularly after hours is perhaps not so productive.
The last point I'd like to bring up is the focus on standardized testing. In the States we have an argument about the legitimacy of No Child Left Behind, and the effort to bring standardized testing scores up at the detriment of critical thinking skills. Korea is about 5 times worse in this department. Critical thinking skills are almost non-existent, and no where is this more evident than in language skills. Koreans have wonderful vocabulary but little to no speaking skills. My high school students have studied English for close to 8 years now, and have difficulty responding to "How was your weekend?" Nevertheless, they would be able to read and write at a normal level. This is because oral tests aren't a large focus in Korean curriculum and therefore speaking ability isn't stressed. I've also heard from Korean professors trained in the West that Korean undergraduate students come to university unprepared for the type of critical thinking that is instilled in American high schools. The idea of a Socratic seminar is nonexistent at the high school level in Korea.
If you ask a Korean teacher what his/her main job is, most likely the answer will be 'administration' over education. Paper work (and not the kind that is grading) consumes more of the teachers' jobs here, and actual education is a secondary concern. Amazing, but that, according to every teacher I've talked to here, is the Korean system. Given that, it's not surprising that Koreans depend on academies outside of the public school system for 'supplemental' education.
Indeed, Korean teachers are not oblivious to the inherent problems of education, and there is a movement to overhaul the system. Overall, I think I would prefer my western education (albeit high school was several years ago) to the Korean model.
Wow that's a great front-line account, much appreciated!
I've also taught English in South Korea. I take issue with your evaluation of the Korean education system based on a 2 minute Reuters clip and a search on wikipedia. Had you done even a simple Google search on "hagwons" or "education in Korea," you would have come across the myriad of education issues that plague the country.
The demand for "good" education has no part in the South Korean system. Students study at hagwons to learn how to pass standardized tests to gain entry to the most prestigious high schools and universities. It'd be a like a U.S. student going to Kaplan for 6 hours after school. They would learn how to do really well on the SATs, but little else.
The need to attend hagwons arises from the weaknesses in the Korean school system. Not an eagerness to continue learning.
The cost of attending hagwons is a huge economic issue in Korea. The economic burden on families is tremendous as the cost of attending hagwons can easily exceed $1,000 per month. The per capita income of Korea is still only around $20,000. The government is in the midst of cracking down on hagwons charging exorbitant fees, and hopes to reduce the need to attend hagwons by 2012.
typo is correct about Korea being a "presentation" or appearances society. Outside of the classroom I would often speak with the parents of my students. I also have many friends who are themselves parents. The always expressed the same sentiments; they hate having to send their children to hagwons. It's expensive, their children aren't learning, and it leaves parents and children stressed out. So why do they do it? Because if they didn't send their kids to hagwons, the neighbors would talk about them behind their back. They have to keep up appearances.
Also consider that several Korean families split up in order to send their children to school's abroad. It's not unheard of for a mother to take the children to New Zealand or Australia to attend school, while the father stays at work in Korea.
South Korea is a great country, but education is not it's strong point.
I concur, HG. The hagwons are a sick, self-reinforcing system that doesn't really reward anyone except the hagwons.
Another reason for their popularity though, aside from appearances, is that for many years South Korea limited the number of students who would be accepted to college well below the demand or ability to pay. Then, once the students were there for a year, the government would engage in some Jack-Welch style layoffs and expelled the lowest 10% of students (regardless of their nominal performance). The admissions process was determined primarily by those same standardized test scores the hagwons are supposed to boost. With an artificially lowered number of slots available and only a single method of admission, spending thousands of dollars to gain just a few extra points becomes more reasonable (if systemically foolish), and anyone not boosting their scores in any way possible was only harming themselves. Cue race to the bottom.
One thing noticeably absent from these comments, I've found, is people contesting the idea that 12 hours of education is practical at all! In America, there's a decent agreement that 6 hours of education isn't quite enough to maximize retention, most psychologists and educational designers would agree that 12 hours of classroom work in a day is enough to turn anyone's brain to mush. No amount of focus or personal discipline will make that 11th or 12th hour useful or productive for retention. And don't tell me that "they" are different in South Korea, or Asia, and have better attention spans. Culturally, attention spans are SOMEWHAT longer, but culture doesn't change cognitive science. Twelve hours of studying isn't wise or effective; it's just the only choice these families think they have.
Thanks for all of these comments -- especially from those who shared your first-hand experiences. It sounds like South Korean education is far from perfect for the reasons you outlined. There must be some happy medium between the U.S. and South Korea, which we should really be aiming for.
Many of the above posts have talked about the education system. Having worked in high tech in the United States, Germany, China and Korea, I'd like to share my observations about the results of the education system: the capacities of the work force, based on 3 factors ...
When judged by industriousness, the Koreans are definitely at the top (even more than the Chinese). I concur with previous comments about the ridiculous working hours, as well as the observation that the overtime usually isn't that productive. My explanation for this is because of poor time management - if you grew up with such a rigorous and structured study schedule as they have in Korea, then you probably never learned how to optimize your working process. In this respect, the Germans are the best - finish the work as quickly so you can move on and enjoy life.
Regarding intellectual curiosity, Americans are the best, followed by the Germans. I attribute this to the research-focused orientation of the higher education systems, which encourages students to pursue studies of their own desire. Workers out of such systems are able to conceptualize, develop and realize their ideas. However, if you ask Chinese or Korean engineers to develop something, they ask you for documentation or a manual to follow, expecting that there's a textbook to study (just like at cram school).
However, in my opinion, the most obvious observation from my experience has been the differences in social intelligence. Highly competitive environments like Korea and China breed highly competitive workers. This is good if they work for different companies, but anathema if they work for the same organization. The skill to communicate ideas and collaborate together with others is almost non-existent. This is why Asian companies must have strong top-down hierarchies: the capacity for healthy debate and collaborative decision-making is limited. Granted, a top-down hierarchical organizations can also be successful. Also, German and American organizations can have poor collaborative cultures (see GM). But in the creative industries that are all-important in the 21st century, cooperation and collaboration is a must. And Western higher education still has a monopoly on this, hands down.
I admit that there are many counterexamples of each of these countries out there, but these are just my generalizations.
I am teaching in South Korea now and I was talking to my friend who is also a teacher. She said that her son, who is six years old, failed the jumping rope standardized test at school, but she doesn't know what to do about it, because the jumping rope academy is already full. I am not joking, there really is such a thing, created to coach kids to pass this pointless test, and it has a waiting list full of Korean parents waiting to pay someone a lot of money to jump rope with their kids.
I am a Canadian English teacher. I have taught and lived in Korea, off and on, for over 6 years. What this article fails to mention is that a lot of Korean students are also often asleep in their classrooms due to competing hagwons. The end result is that they sleep in all hagwons, complain about many teachers (is knowledge a discreet, consumable product?) Also, xenophobic Koreans would never pay a foreigner these salaries. These teachers may become famous by pandering to the lowest common denominator, versus actually transferring knowledge. Considering the billions of dollar s and over a decade of effort, the quality of English and/or foreign language education here in Korea is quite bad. Korean students ranked 3rd in the world according to the OECD PISA study. Number 1? Finland, a much more socialist oriented country. Number 2? The province of Alberta, Canada. While Canada isn't as socialist as Finland or Europe why are two socialist systems trouncing the ubercapitalist Korean and (dear God) American systems?