Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Pusanpoe]

Here follows a recent article from a Korean newspaper -Chosun Ilbo I think. I think given the number of hogwons and the below I can only see more parents reducing their investment in education. Emigration and immigration patterns will also have their effects. The gravy train days may be over for Hagwon industry and various attached teachers. Hope so and that the givernment will regulate it properly before it significantly collapses. I can hear the rumble of the rubble. Oh too late
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The rising cost of a Korean education leads many to seek new lives overseas

[Second report in an occasional series] The huge cost of an education for their children ― a son in third grade and a daughter in kindergarten ― was the chief driving force that led Mrs. Kang, and her husband to decide to leave Korea for the United States.
Mrs. Kang, 38, said more than 700,000 won ($600) a month went to the six classes her son was enrolled in outside of school.
A course in English conversation cost 290,000 won, while another 100,000 won went to a composition class. There was also 100,000 won a month for piano lessons.
Recently, Mrs. Kang sent her son to the United States for a month to get a better feel for English ― and that cost 2 million won.
The tuition for her daughter is another 700,000 won a month.
“There is nothing unusual about this where we live,” Mrs. Kang said, referring to the upmarket district of Gangnam, south of the Han River.
She said she started giving her children the classes because “everyone else was doing it.”
Yet she often feels she is “suffocating” her children as they grow up under a mountain of study books.
The only way out she and her husband could see was to emigrate.
Armed with a degree in management and at least two years experience in the same position ― entry requirements for a U.S. employment visa ― Mr. Kang, 42, has applied hoping to begin a new life with his family in the United States soon.
Competition for better education locally now involves more extracurricular activities. And that means added costs that many middle-class families are finding out of reach.
This on top of an already high proportion of costs in the public education sector that are increasingly being borne by the private sector ― including parents themselves.
As a consequence, there has been a sharp increase in the number of people in their 30s and 40s with school-aged children choosing to leave Korea for better education opportunities in developed countries, such as the United States, Canada and Australia.
The Ministry of Education and Human Resources said yesterday that Korea ranked highest among Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development member countries in terms of the private sector’s share of the cost of public education. Korean parents spent more than 7.1 trillion won in 2000 on lessons for their children outside school.
Korea also spends the largest proportion of its gross domestic product on education.
That was 1.4 percent of the year’s GDP, and equivalent to half the nation’s defense spending.
Kim Young-chul, a senior researcher at the Korean Educational Development Institute, which tabulated the 2000 figures, said that with little change in the country’s education system ― and more competition among parents to educate their children since then ― the amount of spending was likely to be much higher today.
When Mr. Chung, 40, emigrated from Korea to Canada with his family last year, the driving force behind his decision was to take his children away from such a pressurized environment.
Mr. Chung, who now runs an architectural firm in his adopted country, said when he sees his school-age daughter and son enjoying their lives, he knows he made the right decision for them.
His son, who remained in the lower tier of academic performance at his old school in Korea, had picked up golf and become much more confident in many things he did, including studying, Mr. Chung said.
But educators also warned that moving to a foreign country for a better educational environment posed its own hazards.
An official at the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, Kim Won-kyun, said the language barrier was the biggest hurdle to overcome.
He said children who did not have a good grasp of English before they emigrated were likely to have “an incomplete education.”

[Arthur Fonzerelli]

pusanpoe = real reality????

[posco's trumpet]

[just because]

I don't think the hagwon days will end for a long time. A good case study is japan. in the 70's and 80's the industry was extremely unregulated and wsa very similar to the situation here. The government stepped and cleaned it up a bit, hence the way the visas are handed out to foreingners there(free agant) compared to here(contracted). I think the industry will collapse a little and the best ones will survive. maybe the government will regulate it a little(but not as well as in japan) and it should be a little better here in 10 years.
Where I disagree with the OP is the fact that Koreans even more nowadays want there children to get ahead now that the youth unemployment rate is rising. I think you will find in the short term that the will be pushed even harder to be the best student. i can see good days for the hagwon industry in Korea for a long time yet.

[Real Reality]

Majority of 20s, 30s wish to emigrate
Seven out of every ten adults in their 20s and 30s want to emigrate to another country, according to a recent study conducted by the marriage information company Piery. After surveying 572 clients over the phone, it found that 72.1 percent are thinking of relocating.

When asked to explain their motivation, 42.3 percent said it would be for their children's education, 31.4 percent cited the present unemployment problems in Korea and 19.7 percent are fed up with the political and social turmoil, results showed.
http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2003/09/18/200309180052.asp

In terms of the quality of education, South Korea has an average of 36.3 students per class in primary schools, far higher than the OECD average of 22.0, while its student-to-teacher ratio was 32.1 to one. The OECD average is 17.
http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/nation/200309/kt2003091618200711980.htm

[Saxiif]

[just because]

Real reality,
How many times are you going to post that emigration article. When are you going to emigrate with the rest of the Koreans???

[whatthefunk]

The problem is the lack of public education and the Korean Mother Syndrom. Its very clear to me that the Korean education system was designed to create a need for uniforms rather than teach children. So the mothers, who are completly nuts, send their kids to twenty hagwans a day.
But, the grass is always greener on the other side and if we move to cenral LA, our children will grow up in a much better environment because the US is perfect when they're not busy killing innocent Korean girls.