An exam question:
Korea's college entrance exam process is increasingly considered to be deleterious to public health because:
(a) it contributes to
a startlingly high incidence of myopia (75%) and a doubling of curvature of the
spine over the past ten years among testing-aged Seoul teenagers;
(b) an alarming
number of families are going broke supporting an extracurricular “cram school”
education that costs 12% of a household’s overall budget;
(c) it is the leading
cause for teenage suicides which is the highest rate amongst OECD countries;
(d) a few popular
online private tutors who have reached superstar status have been able to earn
millions of USD per year by attracting tens of thousands of pupils, thereby
effectively negating any competitive advantage that the lessons purport to
confer;
(e) the English
curriculum is ultimately considered to be of little value because, while
students might know how to define words like “deleterious” and “myopia” in a
multiple choice exam, they can hardly converse well enough to order a pizza,
much less save their own skins in day-to-day life;
(f) all of the above.
The answer, sadly, is (f).
Though the rigors of the Chinese college entrance examination (the Gaokao, the subject of the previous blog article) are only now more widely coming to light internationally, the arduousness of Korea's college entrance system has long been well known. It has alternatively been admired for vaulting Korean students to the top of the global academic heap (as measured by test scores) or scorned for the mounting social costs forced onto a stressed out domestic population. Recent public focus has turned towards the increasingly negative impacts. In response, the government has been imposing regulations against Korea’s infamously demanding network of “hagwon” tutoring schools, including mandatory closing time of 10 pm, caps on hourly charges and a ban on front-running study materials taught in school. Nevertheless, real change is difficult to implement in hyper-competitive Korea society. Test-taking is a central tenet of the country’s Confucian tradition. Parents will risk sending themselves to an early grave or suffocating under a pile of consumer debt to keep Junior Kim up to snuff with his/her peers. And society idolizes the best tutors and pays fortunes to them every year. How many other countries treat bespectacled math or English teachers like Lady Ga Ga and Justin Timberlake?
Of additional concern is that some of the “hagwon” have developed a sufficiently strong reputation to export their systems to neighboring countries such as Taiwan. Asian students prepping for the US SAT are enrolling in increasing numbers in “hagwon” systems to improve their shot at getting into strong American universities. However, the growth of the “hagwon” system only creates a vicious cycle of competitiveness among an expanding applicant pool that needs to outdo each other. There should be real concern that the social ills endemic to such a rigid system may also be exported.
In an increasingly complex world, success requires flexible problem solving skills and creative thinking. Such attributes are too often inadequately exhibited through multiple choice exams. And living well - which should be every individual's goal - is a broad issue that has more than one correct answer.
Check out this FT article about Hagwons
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