Fulbright U.S. Education Center

An article appeared in the Korea Times yesterday that illustrates the high profile and potentially controversial nature of English testing in South Korea.  The article deals with an ETS Korea scholarship program that selected eight high school students as “ETS Ambassadors.”

The article notes that the ETS promotion comes at a time when foreign language high schools in Korea have dropped TOEFL requirements.  I might add that the general context for this article involves the important question of whether or not TOEFL is an appropriate test for middle school and high school students, many of whom have been taking it in recent years, for lack of an alternative.

According to an article in the Chosun Ilbo today, eight out of ten salaried workers think they are underpaid because of their poor English skills.  In the survey of almost 1,500 employed workers conducted by a jobs site, 89.9 percent of respondents said that if they had a better command of English they would be better paid.

When asked what they would do if they had a better command of English, most said transfer to a larger firm (54.4 percent), followed by working in another field (20.4 percent), negotiating their salary (13.3 percent) and leaving the company to found their own business (7.8 percent).

As reported in the Korea Times, it’s easy to spot the neatly dressed kindergarteners hopping out of BMWs and Maseratis in front of the southern Seoul campus of British International Pre School (BIPS), a prestigious English-speaking kindergarten rumored to be most sought-after by the rich moms in town.

The school’s annual tuition hovers above 18 million won ($14,400) ― more than four times the tuition for public universities ― but money doesn’t seem to be the problem. It’s the competition rate.  One mother who failed to get her six-year-old son into the program says she felt defeated when she had to enroll her child in a regular neighborhood kindergarten, which typically charges 200,000 won to 400,000 won per month.

BIPS, Bambini and some 20 other English-speaking “premium” kindergartens claim to provide only the best and charge anywhere from 1.5 million to 2 million won per month.

As reported in The Korea Times, a total of 457 elementary and secondary schools across the nation have been selected as schools that will attempt to free their students from private tutoring. To do this through upgrading curricula and other programs, the schools will receive subsidies from the government.  According to the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, about 1,000 schools had applied for the subsidy program.

The selected schools will receive an average of 130 million won ($102,000) per year ― the government plans to spend about 60 billion won on the project this year.

The “private tutoring-free schools” are expected to run tailor-made programs or after-school classes with the special budget as well as hire more teachers.

The schools are obliged to regularly survey private cram school costs of their students and report it to the ministry. Those who fail to reduce private education costs will no longer be entitled to the subsidies.

As covered by the Joongang Ilbo and other local media today,  private education institutes, or hagwon, will be banned from providing classes after 10 p.m. from today, and whistleblowers will be rewarded with cash payments.   This was announced yesterday by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology.  An individual who reports on illegal hagwon operations will be rewarded with a maximum of 2 million won ($1,577) in total.

This measure is unprecedented, although past administrations have spent decades trying to clamp down on private education fever in South Korea.  According to the Education Ministry, education offices in each city and province will accept reports on illegal practices of hagwon. The Ministry will also install a call center for the same function.   To help ensure the effectiveness of these measures, the Ministry will hire 200 workers devoted soley to the task of cracking down on illegal hagwon operations.  The assumption is that parents who are dissatisfied with the operations or tuition fees of a particular hagwon will make up the majority of those who report violations of the new policy.

As reported by the Joongang Daily today, the government of President Lee Myung Bak, through the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology and the ruling Grand National Party, are set to release a “Road Map to Ease Private Education Costs” by the end of July.   This is the latest salvo in a perennial political battle to curb the influence of private institutes or “hagwons” in Korean education.  Reportedly the proposal will ban cram schools for elementary school children after 9:00 P.M. and for middle and high school students after 10:00 P.M.

At a meeting with ministers on June 23rd, President Lee reportedly said that “Getting rid of private education is crucial for reducing the financial burden on lower income households, but it seems hagwons have a strong lobbying capacity.”  Although Korea is expected to post negative economic growth this year, spending on private education, including hagwons and tutoring, rose to 20.9 trillion won ($16.4 billion) from 20.4 trillion won a year earlier.

An online tutoring service started in the year 2000 was founded by a former tutor at a private education institute.  His inspiration for the company came while watching a home-shopping channel on television and he intended to help reduce the education inequality that is produced when nearly eight in ten students supplement public education with study in private cram schools, or hagwons.  As noted in a New York Times article by Choe Sang-Hun, Megastudy.net, the online tutoring service Mr. Son Joo-eun started, may be the perfect convergence of South Korean’s dual obsessions with educational credentials and the internet.  By tapping into those concerns, which increase during a recession, Megastudy has become South Korea’s fastest growing technology company, with sales expected to grow 22.5 percent this year to 245 billion won ($195 million) even as the country’s economy is expected to contract.

Online commercial services like Megastudy charge a relatively small fee, averaging 40,000 to 50,000 won ($30 to $40) for each course a student selects from thousands of online tutorials.   Megastudy competes with the government sponsored EBS, which offers similar tutorials for free.    However, it hires teachers with followings that rival those of pop stars.  Last year one Megastudy teacher generated 10 billion won (nearly $8 million) and pocketed 23 percent as his share.

With the country pouring billions of dollars into making the internet ten times faster by 2014, Mr. Son suggested that the world turn to South Korea for a glimpse of what education might look like in the future.  ”Offline schools will become supplemental to online education,” he predicted.  ”Students will go to school, perhaps once a week, for group activities like sports.”

The heavy reliance of South Korean students on private educational institutes to supplement what they learn in public schools is a major news item these days.  As reported in the Joongang Daily, “The Education Ministry and lawmakers from the ruling Grand National Party yesterday agreed to withdraw the proposal by a high-ranking Blue House official to prohibit private education institutes, or hagwon, from having classes after 10 p.m., ending a month-long controversy. ”

However, the same meeting to resolve the matter also produced a range of reform measures on the admissions system for foreign language and science high schools, as part of the government’s agenda to battle private-education fever.   This remains a major issue in South Korea’s education sector.

An article in The Korea Herald today provides some useful detail on the increase in spending on private education in South Korea.  Government data showed yesterday that the gap in private education spending between the wealthy and the poor widened last year, raising fears that the economic slump may hit children of low-income families more severely.

According to data by the Bank of Korea and the National Statistical Office, the top 20 percent households in terms of income spent 6.9 times more on private education than the bottom 20 percent in 2008, up from 5.9 times a year earlier. The corresponding figure has continuously risen from 5.3 in 2003, except for the year 2006 with 6.6.

By region, monthly expenditure per student in Seoul was 2.4 times larger than that in smaller towns, or Myeons and Eups, in 2008, up 2.3 times in 2007, the NSO said.

Although the government has been putting ever more emphasis on English education in public schools, spending for private English education rose by the most in terms of subject.

The private education spending for English rose by 11.8 percent, while that of other subjects, like Korean essay writing, fell by 10 percent, the NSO survey showed.

Educational attainment was also a significant factor in deciding the amount of private education spending. Mothers with degrees from graduate schools spent 398,000 won a month on private education in 2008, whereas those with high school degrees spent half of that, or 201,000 won, the survey showed.

According to a report in the Korea Times, spending on private tutoring in South Korea topped US $14 billion in 2008.  This amounted to a 7.6 percent increase from the previous year.   Spending on private education has been rising sharply since 2001 when it stood at 8.11 trillion won. In 2003, the figure exceeded the 10 trillion won mark before growing to 12.86 trillion won in 2004 and 13.75 trillion won in 2005. The spending rose to 15.65 trillion won in 2006.

This is just the latest evidence that Korean parents continue to sacrifice greatly for their children’s education.