Most recently, during the current global financial crisis, Korea is among a handful of major industrial nations that have continued to boost education spending, despite the recession.  The others are China, Taiwan, Germany, France and Brazil,, according to research conducted at U.C. Berkeley’s Center for Studies in Higher Education and reported in The San Francisco Chronicle.

The ratings showed that students gave higher scores to hagwon teachers for preparing them for college entrance exams, and for trying to maintain closeness with students.  Some school teachers complained about the results of KEDI’s research, suggesting it was not appropriate to compare hagwon and public school teachers since their purposes were different.

• South Korea has the most advanced and extensive digital networks in the world, both fixed (fiber optic) and mobile.  Such innovations as broadband internet, social networking and 3G mobile communication arrived in Korea years before they came to the U.S. , Europe and other parts of the world.
• Korea continues to send far more students to the U.S. on a per capita basis than any country in the world, and continues to rank near the top in absolute numbers.

All organizations in Korea are adapting to this rapidly changing media environment.  For example, the U.S. Embassy has launched a very popular internet cafe (Cafe USA) on Daum, one of Korea’s leading portals.  The current ambassador to Korea, Kathleen Stephens, a former Peace Corps volunteer here, authors a very popular blog which is published simultaneously in both Korean and English.  The Embassy public affairs office operates an information center blog and posts information to the web about the Embassy’s American Corners.

In relation to all of these efforts, the Fulbright Commission’s U.S. Education Center plays a unique role.  Fulbright Korea became involved with “student counseling” back in the 1960s, and its efforts expanded in parallel with the growing numbers of Korean students going to the U.S. for study abroad.  The purchase of the Fulbright Building, which was dedicated in January of 2000, augmented our ability to provide web-based advising and information services in the Korean language, to prospective Korean students and their parents, and in English, to U.S. colleges, universities and other educational organizations seeking to recruit Korean students.

• We encourage U.S. colleges, universities, and other educational organizations to “Partner with Fulbright Korea in Cyberspace,” by using our services to enhance their exchange activities with Korea.  As a binational commission, we have unequaled credibility in the Korean education sector.
• We offer high quality localization services to translate materials into Korean and adapt them to Korean user preferences.
• We maintain a technical support staff, alongside our educational advisers to support a growing array of web services.  We operate from the Fulbright Building in Mapo, which is owned by the Korean American Educational Commission.  This blog exists to support activities of the U.S. Education Center.  Jim Larson maintains a related blog on Korea’s Information Society which frequently touches on education issues.

In April of this year we are pleased to be hosting  a U.S. State-Department sponsored workshop on “Social, Mobile and Visual Media” with the theme of “Advising in the Digital Age.”  Fifteen advisors from other EducationUSA centers around the Asia region will join staff from the U.S. State Department and our Fulbright web team  in Seoul to explore cutting-edge issues that are transforming the nature of advising in the digital age.   More on this topic in later posts.

Reportedly, no foreign tutors have been caught by the authorities for violation of the Private Education law.

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.

According to the Suseo police department in southern Seoul, the four –including a 36 year old SAT preparation instructor–were suspected of leaking exam sheets they obtained from a high school in Gapyeong, Gyeonggi Province, where the SAT test was administered last Saturday.

The SAT scandal is a lead item on Korean television news these days and is in all the newspapers.  For further detail, you may wish to read the Joongang Daily’s account of the latest developments.

The steep rise began when the government gave autonomy to raise tuition to private universities in 1989 and to state-run universities in 2003.   The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology announced Thursday that it will receive applicants for the new “study now pay later” program from today through March 31.  The program provides students with long term state education loans.