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South Korea
experts situated in South Korea
Heeok Heo, Associate Professor, SunChon National University
South Korea in a nutshell
(sourced from Wikipedia)
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea and often referred to as Korea (Korean: 대한민국, Hanja: 大韓民國), is a presidential republic in East Asia, occupying the southern half of the Korean Peninsula. Also known as the Land of the Morning Calm, it is neighbored by China to the west, Japan to the east and borders North Korea to the north. South Korea's capital and largest city, Seoul, is a global financial and cultural center and the second largest metropolitan city in the world.
Following the unification of the Three Korean Kingdoms in 668 CE, Korea went through the Goryeo and Joseon Dynasty as one nation until the end of the Korean Empire in 1910. After division, South Korea was established in 1948 and has since developed a successful democracy, a prosperous economy and an advanced military, maintaining a strong alliance with the United States. It is now working towards a peaceful reunification with North Korea.
South Korea is a major economic power and one of the wealthiest countries in Asia. It is a developed country with a high standard of living, having a trillion dollar economy that is the third largest in Asia and 13th largest in the world. Forming the G20 industrial nations and the world's top ten exporters, it is an APEC and OECD member, defined as a High Income Nation by the World Bank and an Advanced Economy by the IMF and CIA. A major non-NATO ally, it has the world's sixth largest armed forces and the tenth largest defence budget in the world.
The government of South Korea is divided into three branches: executive, judicial, and legislative. The executive and legislative branches operate primarily at the national level, although various ministries in the executive branch also carry out local functions. Local governments are semi-autonomous, and contain executive and legislative bodies of their own. The judicial branch operates at both the national and local levels. South Korea is a constitutional democracy.
The South Korean government's structure is determined by the Constitution of the Republic of Korea. This document has been revised several times since its first promulgation in 1948. However, it has retained many broad characteristics; with the exception of the short-lived Second Republic of South Korea, the country has always had a presidential system with an independent chief executive. South Korea has developed a successful liberal democracy since the 1960s and the first direct election was held in 1987.
South Korea is divided into 8 provinces (do), 1 special autonomous province (teukbyeol jachido), 6 metropolitan cities (gwangyeoksi), and 1 special city (teukbyeolsi). These are further subdivided into a variety of smaller entities, including cities (si), counties (gun), districts (gu), towns (eup), townships (myeon), neighborhoods (dong) and villages (ri), as explained below.
(Note on translation: although the terms "Special City," "Metropolitan City," "Province," and "City" are commonly used on English-language government websites, the other translations ("county," "town," "district," etc.) are not official translations, and are only intended to serve as useful illustrations of each entity's meaning.)
Most South Koreans live in urban areas, due to rapid migration from the countryside during the country's quick economic expansion in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. The capital city of Seoul is also the country's largest city and chief industrial center. It had 10.3 million inhabitants in 2006, making Seoul one of the most populated single cities in the world.[79] Other major cities include Busan (3.65 million), Incheon (2.63 million), Daegu (2.53 million), Daejeon (1.46 million), Gwangju (1.41 million) and Ulsan (1.10 million).[
The population has also been shaped by international migration. Following the division of the Korean peninsula after World War II, about four million people from North Korea crossed the border to South Korea. This trend of net entry reversed over the next forty years due to emigration, especially to the United States and Canada. However, South Korea's burgeoning economy and democracy in the early and mid-1990s slowed the high emigration rates typical of the previous decades. The current population of South Korea is roughly 48,850,000.
Although small, the percentage of non-Koreans has been increasing. Officially, as of the summer of 2007, there are just over 1 million foreigners living in Korea. That number includes foreign residents, students, tourists and illegal aliens. Among them, 104,749 people were married to Koreans, 404,051 were working in Korea and 225,273 were illegal aliens.
Korean farmers have a hard time finding a wife, as few women want to live in the countryside. Farmers are forced to look abroad to find their wife, mostly from Southeast Asia, and increasingly from Eastern Europe. For the year 2006, 41% of the marriages amongst the farmers were to foreign nationals.
There are 31,000 US military personnel.
South Korea education policy
Education in South Korea is regarded crucial to success and competition is consequently very heated and fierce. In the most recent OECD Programme for International Student Assessment, South Korea came first in Problem solving, first in Reading, third in Mathematics and eleventh in Science, all being significantly higher than Western European and North American countries. South Korea has the highest national IQ in the world, estimated at 106.
A centralised administration in South Korea oversees the process for the education of children from kindergarten to third grade high school. South Korea has adopted a new educational program. It was planned to increase the number of their foreign students through the year 2010. According to Ministry of Education, Science and Technology estimate, by that time, the number of scholarships for foreign students in S. Korea will be doubled, and the number of foreign students will reach 100,000. Mathematics, science, Korean, social studies, and English are generally considered to be the most important subjects and are considered compulsory.
South Korea was the first country in the world to provide high-speed internet access to every primary, junior, and high school.
The school year is divided into two semesters. The first begins in the beginning of March and ends in mid-July; the second begins in late August and ends in mid-February. The schedules are not uniformly standardised and vary from school to school.
Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development
The Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development is responsible for South Korean education. It was renamed by the former Ministry of education, who enhanced its function in 2001 because the administration of Kim Dae-jung considered education and human resources development as a matter of the highest priority. As a result of the reform, it began to cover the whole field of human resource development and the minister of education was appointed to the Vice Prime Minister.
Like other ministers, the Minister of Education and Human Resources Development is appointed by the president. They are mainly chosen from candidates who have an academic background and often resign in a fairly short term (around one year).
South Korea education system
(sourced from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_South_Korea)
Education in South Korea is seen as the most important key to success and competition is consequently very heated and fierceA centralized administration oversees the process for the education of children from kindergarten to the third and final year of high school. Mathematics, science, Korean, social studies, and English are generally considered to be the most important subjects. Sometimes physical education is not considered important as it is not regarded to be education and therefore many schools lack high-quality gymnasiums and varsity athletics. South Korea was the first country in the world to provide high-speed internet access from every primary, junior, and high school.
The school year is divided into two semesters. The first begins in the beginning of March and ends in mid-July; the second begins in late August and ends in mid-February. They have summer vacation from mid-July to late August, and winter vacation from late-December to early February, and also take a short vacation from mid-February to end of that month. The schedules are not rigidly standardized, however, and can vary from school to school.
Details
Kindergarten
Kindergarten in Korea is not a publicly administered program. Parents send their children to private schools: most are taught in Korean, many of those have an English class, and some kindergartens are taught almost entirely in English.
Kindergarten in South Korea is composed of children from ages three to five. Most children do not attend "preschool" but are lumped together in a kindergarten class with other children who may be within a three years age difference. When the child reaches about six years of age he/she is systematically moved on to the first year of elementary school. From kindergarten to high school, matriculating through the grade levels is not determined on knowledge, grades or passing of any tests, but is based purely upon the student's age. Enrollment in kindergartens or preschools expanded impressively during the 1980s. In 1980 there were 66,433 children attending 901 kindergartens or preschools. By 1987 there were 397,020 children in 7,792 institutions. The number of kindergarten and preschool teachers rose from 3,339 to 11,920 during the same period. The overwhelming majority of these teachers--approximately 92 percent--were women. This growth was attributable to several factors: Ministry of Education encouragement of preschool education, the greater number of women entering the work force, growth in the number of nuclear families where a grandparent was often unavailable to take care of children, and the feeling that kindergarten might give children an "edge" in later educational competition. Kindergartens often paid homage to the expectations of parents with impressive graduation ceremonies, complete with diplomas and gowns.
Elementary School
Elementary school consists of grades one to six(age 8 to age 13 in Korean years - 6 to 12 in western years). Students learn subjects including, but not limited to, Korean, mathematics, science, social studies, language arts, fine arts, and music. Usually, the class teacher covers most of the subjects; however, there are some specialized teachers in professions such as physical education and foreign languages, including English. About 20 years ago, English used to be taught first in middle school, but nowadays, students begin learning English in the third year of elementary school. Korean language has a very different grammatical structure from English, and English education in Korea is more or less inefficient, so this is a frequent source of concern to parents. Many choose to send their children to additional private educational institutions called hagwon (학원). More schools in the country are recruiting native English speakers to facilitate learning English.
Alongside public elementary schools there are a number of private elementary schools in Korea, usually distinguishable by the uniforms their students wear (public elementary school students do not wear uniforms apart from PE kit). These schools follow a similar curriculum as public elementary schools, but often offer superior facilities, a higher teacher-to-student ratio, and extra programmes. They also usually offer a higher standard of learning. Though highly desirable, they are prohibitively expensive for many Korean parents.
Elementary schools are called chodeung-hakgyo (Hangul:초등학교 Hanja:初等學校,), meaning elementary school. The South Korean government changed its name to the current form from gukmin hakgyo (Hangul:국민학교 Hanja:國民學校) meaning citizens' school in 1996. This was done as a gesture of restoring national pride. The word, abbreviated from 황국신민의 학교 (皇國臣民의 學校), means "school for the subjects of the imperial state" carried over from Japanese colonial rule.
Secondary education
In 1987 there were approximately 4,895,354 students enrolled in middle schools and high schools, with approximately 150,873 teachers. About 69 percent of these teachers were male. The secondary-school enrollment figure also reflected changing population trends--there were 3,959,975 students in secondary schools in 1979. Given the importance of entry into higher education, the majority of students attended general or academic high schools in 1987: 1,397,359 students, or 60 percent of the total, attended general or academic high schools, as compared with 840,265 students in vocational secondary schools. Vocational schools specialized in a number of fields: primarily agriculture, fishery, commerce, trades, merchant marine, engineering, and the arts.[citation needed]
Competitive entrance examinations at the middle-school level were abolished in 1968. Although as of the late 1980s, students still had to pass noncompetitive qualifying examinations, they were assigned to secondary institutions by lottery, or else by location within the boundary of the school district. Secondary schools, formerly ranked according to the quality of their students, have been equalized, with a portion of good, mediocre, and poor students being assigned to each one. The reform, however, did not equalize secondary schools completely. In Seoul, students who performed well in qualifying examinations were allowed to attend better quality schools in a "common" district, while other students attended schools in one of five geographical districts. The reforms applied equally to public and private schools whose enrollments were strictly controlled by the Ministry of Education.
Unlike United States, where the grade of a student is commonly incremented until 12th grade as the student progresses through primary and secondary education system, in South Korea, the grade of a student is reset as the student progresses through elementary, middle and high school. To differentiate the grades between students, one would often state the grade based on the level of education he/she is in. For example, a student in a first year of middle school (equivalent to 7th grade in the United States) would be referred to as "First grade in Middle School (중학교 1학년)".
Middle schools are called 중학교 in Korean (中學校, jung hakgyo), which literally means middle school. High schools are called 고등학교 in Korean (高等學校, godeung hakgyo), literally meaning "high-level school."
Middle School
Middle schools in South Korea consist of three grades. Most students enter at age 12 and finish at age 15 (western years). These three grades correspond roughly to grades 7-9 in the North American system and 2nd to 4th form in the British system.
Middle school in South Korea marks a considerable shift from elementary school, with students expected to take studies and school much more seriously. At most middle schools regulation uniforms and haircuts are enforced fairly strictly, and some aspects of students' lives are highly controlled. Like in elementary school, students spend most of the day in the same homeroom classroom with the same classmates; however, students have different teachers for each subject. Teachers move around from classroom to classroom, and few teachers apart from those who teach special subjects have their own rooms to which students come. Homeroom teachers (담임선생님 dam im seonsangnim) play a very important role in students' lives, and have considerably more authority over and responsibility for their students' than their American counterparts.
Most middle school students take six lessons a day, and in addition to this usually have an early morning block that precedes regular lessons and a seventh lesson specialising in an extra subject to finish the day. Unlike with high school, middle school curricula do not vary much from school to school. Maths, English, Korean, and science form the core subjects, with students also receiving instruction in art, PE, history, Hanja (Chinese characters), ethics, home economics, and computers. What subjects students study and in what amount may vary from year to year. All regular lessons are 45 minutes long. Before school, students have an extra block, 30-or-more minutes long, that may be used for self-study, watching Educational Broadcast System (EBS) broadcasts, or for personal or class administration. As of 2008, students attend school from Monday to Friday, and have a half-day every 1st, 3rd, and 5th (calendar permitting) Saturday of the month. Saturday lessons usually include Club Activity (CA) lessons, where students may participate in extra-curricular activities.
In the late 1960s the government abolished entrance examinations for middle school students, replacing it with a system whereby elementary school students within the same district are selected for middle schools by a lottery system. This has the effect of equalising the quality of students from school to school, though schools in areas where students come from more privileged backgrounds still tend to outperform schools in poorer areas. Until recently most middle schools have been same-sex, though in the past decade most new middle schools have been mixed, and some previously same-sex schools have converted to mixed as well.
As with elementary schools, students pass from grade to grade regardless of knowledge or academic achievement, the result being that classes often have students of vastly differing abilities learning the same subject material together. In the final year of middle school examination scores become very important for the top students hoping to gain entrance into the top high schools, and for those in the middle hoping to get into an academic rather a technical or vocation high school. Otherwise, examinations and marks only matter in so far as pleasing parents and teachers (or avoiding their wrath). There are some standardised examinations for certain subjects, and teachers of academic subjects are expected to follow approved textbooks, but generally middle school teachers have more flexibility over curricula and methods than teachers at high school.
Many middle school students also attend after-school academies, known as hagwon, and some receive extra instruction from private tutors. The core subjects, especially the cumulative subjects of English and maths, receive the most stress. Some hagwon specialise in just one subject, and others offer all core subjects, constituting a second round of schooling every day for their pupils. Indeed, some parents place more stress on their children's hagwon studies than their public school studies. Additionally, many students attend academies for things such as martial arts or music. The result of all this is that many middle school students, like their high school counterparts, return from a day of schooling well after dark or even around midnight.
High school
High schools in South Korea teach students from first grade (age 17) to third grade (age 19), and students commonly graduate at age 19. High schools in Korea can be divided into specialty tracks that accord with a student's interest and career path. For example, there are science (Science high school), foreign language and art specialty high schools to which students can attend with prior entrance examinations, which are generally highly competitive. Other type of high schools include public high schools and private high schools, both with or without entrance examinations. These high schools do not report to specialize in a field, but are more focused on sending their students to college. For students who do not wish a college education, vocational schools specializing in fields such as technology, agriculture or finance are available, in which the students are employeed right after graduation. On noting the schedule of many high school students, it is not abnormal for them to arrive home from school at midnight, after intensive "self-study" sessions supported by the school. The curriculum is often noted as rigorous, with as many as 11 or so subjects and some students choose to attend private academies called 학원 (學院, pronounced hagwons) to boost their academic performance. Core subjects include Korean, English and Math, with adequate emphasis on social and physical science subjects. It is critical to note that the type and level of subjects may differ from school to school, depending on the degree of selectivity and specialization of the school.
High school is not strictly mandatory, unlike middle school education in Korea. However, according to a 2005 study of OECD member countries, some 97% of South Korea's young adults do complete high school. This was the highest percentage recorded in any country.
Higher education
There is a very long article on this topic at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_South_Korea#Post-secondary_education =- very hard to summarise and much of it off-topic for the purposes of Re.ViCa. Work will continue on trying to find a better source document.
Universities in South Korea
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colleges_and_universities_in_South_Korea
Polytechnics in South Korea
Also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colleges_and_universities_in_South_Korea
Education reform
Schools
Post-secondary
Higher education reform
The Bologna Process
See The Impact of the Bologna Process beyond Europe, Part II: Asia-Pacific at http://www.wes.org/ewenr/07sept/feature.htm
Administration and finance
Quality assurance
South Korea HEIs in the information society
Towards the information society
Information society strategy
ICT in education initiatives
Virtual initiatives in schools
Telepresence robot learning programme - English as foreign language
In 2010 the government ran a pilot equipping classrooms with telepresence robots so that English teachers located in the Philippines could teach pupils in South Korean elementary schools the English language. Among the robots is EngKey, developed by the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST). The robot is controlled by teachers abroad who can communicate using embedded microphones and speakers. The Engkey ‘robot’ features a small display with a woman’s face which mimics the facial expression of the teacher, who has cameras in his/her room.
Another version of the Engkey does not connect students to a teacher but uses voice recognition technology to help students practice their English pronunciation and dialogue.
Elementary schools involved in the pilot were located in Masan and Daegu, as mentioned in the news articles below:
- "Get to know Engkey and Kibot! South Korea’s Most Famous Education Robots", Amy Jung, Advanced Technology Korea, 22 July 2011, http://www.advancedtechnologykorea.com/6372, 20 April 2012
- "Robot teachers invade South Korean classrooms", Susannah Palk, CNN, 22 October 2010, http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/innovation/10/22/south.korea.robot.teachers, 20 April 2012
- "South Korea’s Robot Teachers To Test Telepresence Tools in the New Year", Aaron Saenz, Singularity Hub, 3 January 2011, http://singularityhub.com/2011/01/03/south-korea%E2%80%99s-robot-teachers-to-test-telepresence-tools-in-the-new-year/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SingularityHub+%28Singularity+Hub%29, 20 April 2012
Virtual initiatives in post-secondary education
Virtual initiatives in HE in South Korea
Details
Cyber-universities
For a list see http://chronicle.com/free/v47/i30/30a04101.htm.
A few of the more major ones are described below.
Ewha Womans University
Ewha Womans University (Ewha) is a private women's university in central Seoul, South Korea. It is one of the world's largest female educational institutions. Ewha was founded in 1886 by the American Methodist Episcopal missionary Mary F. Scranton. It has roughly 20,000 students.
Ewha hosts the International Cyber University (ICU), whose goal is to promote understanding and awareness of Korean culture and history via course materials places online (in English). Currently established courses are Korean Studies and Women Studies.
The Ewha Womans University web site is at http://www.ewha.ac.kr/english/
Hanyang Cyber University
The Hanyang Cyber University (HYCU) was established by the Hanyang Institutes in South Korea, in March 2002. Based in Seoul, Hanyang Cyber University focusses on the practical fields and skills most in demand by the marketplace. It has expanded since 2002 from 5 to 15 departments.
Its vision is to train creative leaders through open, online education, and seeks to maintain excellence in education as a distance learning university.
The Hanyang Cyber University web site is at http://www.hanyangcyber.ac.kr/English/UnivInfo/UnivInfo01.asp
International Cyber University
Hosted by Ewha Womans University, South Korea, the International Cyber University mission is to promote understanding and awareness of Korean culture and history worldwide, via course materials placed online (in English). Currently established courses are in Korean Studies and Women Studies. See also Ewha Womans University.
The International Cyber University web site is at http://icu.ewha.ac.kr:8080/edutrack/Main.cmd?cmd=setMainForm&pMODE=I
Students of schools that have exchange programme arrangements with Ewha are offered access to ICU free of charge.
KERIS
KERIS (Korea Education & Research Information Service) is a governmental organization under the South Korea Ministry of Education, Science and Technology that develops, proposes, and advises on current and future government policies and initiatives regarding education in South Korea.
Its current focus is on the development of ICT in educational systems in Korea and abroad and works closely with international organizations such as the World Bank and UNESCO to assist other nations in developing or improving their own ICT infrastructure and implementation.
In addition to policy, KERIS provides educators and the public with educational services such as the National Education Information Service(NEIS) - neis.go.kr, the Research Information Service System(RISS) - riss4u.net, the National Education Service System(EDUNET) - edunet.net, and Korea Open CourseWare(KOCW) - kocw.net.
Its web site is at http://english.keris.or.kr
Korea National Open University
The Korea National Open University (KNOU) is the national open university of Korea.
KNOU was founded in 1972 as a branch of Seoul National University. It began by offering a two-year junior college programme to 12,000 students and now has over 200,000 full-time, degree-seeking students for four-year university programs and some part-time students for non-degree, lifelong education programs. It also offers online postgraduate programs in several major areas.
The university has campuses in 12 major cites of South Korea including the capital, Seoul.
Korea Virtual Campus
The Korea Virtual Campus (KVC) consortium was founded in 1997 with 10 member universities. Participants have included the Korea National Open University (KNOU) and Ewha Womans University (Ewha). As of October 2008, it was difficult to judge the status of KVC via web searches in English.
The Korea Virtual Campus web site could not be located in October 2008; many roads lead to the Korea Cyber University web site, however (http://www.kcu.or.kr/english/sub_01_03.asp). It may be more useful to profile that institution.
Seoul Digital University
Seoul Digital University (SDU) opened in 2001, and is considered the "the first digital (E-learning) college in Korea". Based in Seoul, it recently boasted enrolment of 10,000 students from Korea and 23 other countries.
The Seoul Digital University web site is at http://en.sdu.ac.kr/