Hello everyone, I am Euntaek David Shin, currently a senior at Daeil Foreign Language High School. High school life is a redundant, robotic life for students in Korea. Five times a week students are required to be at school by 7:30 a.m., have class until 5:00 p.m., then after dinner which students at the school cafeteria, there is a schedule of self-study period that goes on until 10:00 p.m. (12:00 for some schools). Students are expected to participate this self-study period, unless he or she has hakwon(a “second” school) schedules or has a special occasion like his or her family member passed away. Thinking that this is not enough, students also go to school on Saturdays, however luckily finishes at noon. This rigorous system is because of the college entrance exam which is at November during the senior year of high school. This exam consists of Korean, math, English, and four subjects from a category of either science or social studies, and this exam highly depends which university that student would go to, thus the “future” for Korean students. Therefore the educating policy of Korea is focused most on academic education, forcing students to study and study.
The education policy is an issue that students gossip about today. Obviously, so far I have only heard complaints. The main problem with the policy that people talk about is about the focus, academic focus. Students think that high school focuses too much on academic factors, unlike American schools where there are after school activities. I have heard things such as, “having all this forced into my head is making me stupid!” “I have no time for self development” “If I lived in the United States, I’d be doing much better than now” yadi yada yada.
Taking a step back and looking. Is the Korean education just as bad as is looks? Hell? In fact, the Korean education system has merits that not many other education systems have.
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