Fulbright U.S. Education Center

The Korea Times today published an interview with Vice Minister of Education Lee Ju Ho, that provides a good overview of the current administration’s education policy.  It’s goal, as the headline proclaimed, was to keep Hagwons (private institutes) at bay.  The Vice Minister was quoted as saying “Simply put, our goals are to enable students to be home by 10 P.M. rather than in cram schools, and to help them become rational thinkers rather than receptacles of rote knowledge.”   Lee, who holds a Ph.D. in economics from Cornell University is considered one of the architects of the Lee Myung Bak administration’s education policy and now leads its day-to-day operations.

The administrations reform measures are being implemented in three steps.

• First, colleges and universities are being given greater discretion in selecting new students, allowing them to decide how much to weigh the college scholastic ability (CSAT) test scores.
• This is to be followed by a reduction in the number of subjects tested on the CSAT.
• The third and final step allows schools full authority in student selection through admissions officers.

The government’s reform efforts are viewed as a remedy for the “education fever” that many people think may negatively affect the country’s future.  Currently, hagwons in Seoul are barred from offering classes after 10:00 P.M.  That ban is set to spread to the rest of the country after the Constitutional Court’s rejection of a petition against the ban.  Also, the cram schools are being closely monitored to see whether they are following guidelines on fees.  South Korea leads the world in expenditures per capita on private lessons, spending about $30 billion per year on them.

As reported in the Joongang Daily today, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology has announced that applicants to foreign language high schools who say they received private education or tutoring will be disadvantaged.  This is the Ministry’s latest effort to address concerns that changes in the foreign language high school’s admission process will further overheat the private education market.   The Ministry had earlier announced that foreign language high schools would introduce an admission process that emphasized “self-study” in 2011.

Admissions officers will measure “self study” in various ways, including interviews, examination of study plans and letters of recommendation.  English listening tests, written exams and interviews asking about applicant’s knowledge of specific subjects will be banned.  The Ministry also said that applicants who report their scores for foreign language aptitude tests, such as TOEFL, will lose points.

The Korea Times this morning has a very informative article by Robert Dickey that summarizes the continuing strong influence of the university entrance exam (College Scholastic Aptitude Test) on Korean education.   Despite many efforts to change it over the years, “education inflation,” “teaching to the test” and the like persist.   This article is a good introduction to the current situation.

As reported in The Korea Times today, the state-run college scholastic ability test, which was administered nationwide yesterday, is generally less crucial than it was in the past.  Colleges these days use their own methods to select students for admission in advance of the CSAT.   A large number of students are accepted during an “early admissions” process and many universities require that those students submit the results of the CSAT test as a sort of “pass-fail” final requirement for admission.  For details, read the full article.

A short article in The Korea Times this morning provides another reminder of the high priority this nation places on the college entrance exam.  The headline pretty much tells the story.   A total of 94 domestic flights and two international flights will be re-scheduled this Thursday, when the annual college scholastic ability tests are administered nationwide.  More than half a million high school seniors and repeaters will take the test.

As reported by the Chosun Ilbo, 60 percent of freshmen admitted to Seoul National, Yonsei and Korea Universities in 2009 came from the capital city of Seoul and the immediately surrounding metropolitan area.  The largest proportion came from the upscale Gangnam area of Seoul, followed by Seocho, another upscale district.

The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) has announced a new admissions policy under which it will admit 150 students, based on the recommendations of their high school principals.  The purpose of this new policy is to diversify admissions.  Over 80 percent of students admitted to the school this year graduated from elite institutions, mostly science high schools. Only 20 percent came from regular high schools. The 150 additional openings next year will be allotted to only those attending ordinary high schools.  Ten percent of the 150 openings will be assigned to students from rural areas and another 10 percent will go to students from low-income households.   Suh, Nam-pyo, the President of KAIST, said that “On the premise that there are smart students in provincial areas, we are going to select 150 students recommended by high school principals. One high school wasn’t able to send even a single student to Kaist for the last 10 years. I’m sure there are talented students in that school. If we give the school a chance, the education system will be upgraded.”

The Korea Times reports that education authorities have issued a disciplinary warning to Yongsan International School of Seoul (YISS) for admitting unqualified students. They confirmed an earlier report by The Korea Times (Aug. 25) that the school admitted eight unqualified Korean students who were children of the school’s Korean staff. The students in question have now transferred to other Korean schools.

“We’ve issued a stern warning to the school,’’ said O Nam-bum, an official of the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education (SMOE). “The warning means that if the school accepts unqualified students again, it will face a suspension of operations.’’ Koreans are ineligible to attend the school unless they have lived overseas for more than five years.

There are some 50 foreign schools operating in Korea with about 10,000 enrolled students. Among them, Seoul has 20 and the city plans to build three more by 2012.

Seoul National University and dozens of other universities will expand the use of admission officers to recruit students.  The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology announced Wednesday that the schools will admit at least 3,000 students next year under a state-supported ”admission officer” system. The ministry last year began subsidizing 10 universities for recruiting admission officers with two billion won ($2 million) and has selected 30 more schools for the program this year. “Universities could introduce a more advanced recruitment system with admissions officers and overcome their old practice of evaluating students with a uniform yardstick,” ministry official Hwang Hong-kyu told reporters at the Central Government Complex in Seoul.  See the complete report in The Korea Times.