Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Yu_Bum_suk]

This year my high school has decided to put on a full programme of courses for our academic students every day until the 14th of August, after which the students get less than a week off before the next term starts again. Starting at 9AM they get a full morning and afternoon of lessons plus evening lessons for some of them. The dormitory's full and the cafeteria's offering three meals a day. Basically for all but a few days this summer, it's school like it is the rest of the year. It looks like most of our academic students will get less than ten days off the whole summer "vacation".

Usually during summer and winter break our school offers a reduced amount of lessons, four or five lessons in a half-day that ends at lunch time. I think maybe the school thought it was losing out to hagwons offering more extra classes during the summer or some of the 'boot-camp' hagwons in nearby cities where kids are taught and drilled from dawn to dusk.

Is it this bad for the kids at other academic high schools?

[Tobias]

It's not really about educating the kids here. It's not even about making sure they get into the best schools. These are masks that hide the real reason we see what we see.

Koreans don't like being around kids. They are willing to pay big money to keep their kids at bay.

What else explains why a parent will send his kid off to school at 8 in the morning 6 and 7 days a week for 12 to 15 hours of mostly rote for 11 months out of the year? Hell, it's sometimes 11 1/2 months a year. And during breaks, the kids are at camps.

Some will argue the ends justify the means, but what ends are we talking about? Superior students? Thailand students, for one, score higher on math tests. And Thai students enjoy a "normal" school day of 8-5 or 8-6. For all their efforts, Korean students should simply obliterate everyone else when it comes to test scores in every subject. Do they? Nope. Korean parents should be raging over how much time and money is invested in their kids' educations. Wonder why they don't? It's fucking obvious why they don't. They want peace and quiet and don't want to have to deal with their kids.

I've posted here before on this issue, and I'll post it again. What we see here wouldn't last 5 minutes in the states. Yeah, I can imagine seeing a group of kids getting off a school bus in a place like Iowa at midnight or even later. I can also imagine what would happen next, and so can you if you're from the USA.

We are only babysitters running glorified day care centers here. We just happen to get paid an amazing salary for simply talking to our students. A salary the parents are willing to pay for very little return on their investment.

[Ya-ta Boy]

[Unposter]

Everything Ya-Ta Boy said plus the 12+ hour days now will prepare them for the 12+ hour days they will have to do once they get a job until/if reach the top of the heap!

If school is supposed to prepare you for your future than YBS's school is doing a good job.

At the university I work at, many of the Korean faculty bemoan the fact that some of our students take on part-time jobs or travel during the inter-sessions as it is a waste of their time and they should be preparing for getting a job.

It would be interesting to speculate what it would be like in the U.S. if you needed to study 12 hours a day/7 days a week just to get a job. Would people revolt or would they just sigh and do it?

It is a brave new world...

[cdninkorea]

[Bryan]

[Zutronius]

My students have a week off only.

[IncognitoHFX]

My high school students had last week off. Summer classes started this Monday and run through to next Wednesday, then the regular semester starts up again on Thursday.

I asked them if their winter break was longer and they just kind of looked at me, puzzled, and said: "winter break? Why, that's not even a week..."

[expat2001]

[expat2001]

i dont know if this is true or not , however ,someone once told me that the reason Koreans are so obessed with education is cause at one point they found out that Japan scored higher then them ( koreans ) in academics.

[I_Am_The_Kiwi]

mine had 5 days (incl weekend) at the end of July, that was it. Then its back to school for supplementary classes, which are compulsory. So its basically school as normal for them. Though i think they finish at 5pm which is lucky, normal school hours theyll finish at 10pm..

[Tobias]

ExPat, you could be right. I know I'm right, though, at least for one year, at least based on reports. Sure, test results fluctuate from year to year in a place like Thailand. Plus in Thailand, one has to wonder if somebody is manipulating the reports. The land of smiles is, as some of us know, the land of bribes. But maybe....

For one year, Thailand had the highest math scores in east Asia. This assumes the report was trustworthy, which may be quite a leap.

But maybe.....it was true.

Students who are sound asleep at midnight, and have been so for at least an hour, students who have weekends off (most of the time), students who have two-month breaks for summer, may have beaten a country whose kids can be seen walking home from school at midnight or even later six and seven days a week, 11 1/2 months a year.

[Unposter]

The spin I've heard is that universities are being compared by how well students get jobs. If students work at part time jobs instead of internships or if they travel rather than take a TOEIC class than they are less likely to get a job and the tragedy of that would be it would hurt the university's reputation.

So, now where I work it is all about giving them as many classes and assignments as possible so they cannot but study.

My guess is that YBS's school and many others are in a similar boat except with the high schools, they are being compared by how well their students enter university. So, they work the students to death in hopes of getting as many SKY enterances as possible. If nothing else, it looks like they are making the effort and if your child does not get into the university of their choice, well, it is not like the high school did not give them every opportunity possible.

As for how much down time Korean workers have at work depends on how successful their company is and how successful they are personally. And, of course, management style. These days with job insecurity at all time highs, it is not too hard to push your employees a little harder. But, I don't work at an office so I don't know for sure. I am sure there are plenty of employees out there surfing their websites of choice when the boss is not looking.

Anyway, competition is a good thing, right?

[cdninkorea]

[wylies99]