A post over at Marmot’s Hole has some good research data on where Korea ranks in relation to the rest of the world in education. Not surprisingly, that ranking is very high; second behind only Finland. These results might be very helpful in creating a picture of Korean society IF life were determined at the end of high school. But, unfortunately for Korea, it’s not.
The major problem in Korean education is that it follows the general shape of a condensed bell curve. It starts squashed against the y-axis and rises quickly as the students enter middle school and then it reaches its crest as the students move through high school. But, then the problem occurs. The line drops quickly from that point because the Korean university system is not the higher education institute it’s supposed to be. The students work so hard throughout high school that once they’re into university, the place of “higher education”, there’s really no challenge and no effort to challenge them. Even worse, if the students decide not to show up to class, come late everyday, and generally don’t do any of the work they receive the “Gentleman’s C.” Perhaps that’s the reason Korea posted an embarrassing 53rd out of 55 on an index that essentially ranks how well universities are preparing students to join the workforce.
From the article:
In the future, human resources should be trained to be competent in a global society, understand multiple cultures, deliver opinions and ideas logically and cooperate with others.
We also need to work to develop the quality of our education system by introducing systems from advanced countries. JoongAng
I think this is a terrible proposition and it does nothing to fix the problem. It’s just a simple, ‘Let’s just import it and that will fix everything.’ Well, that doesn’t work. Laws are only good as the cops that enforce them. Similarly, universities are only as good as the university’s policy on enforcing standards of education. Notice I am not saying that the problem is with lazy professors which is a popular argument. I am in graduate school here and I really like my professors. I find them to be excellent teachers, posess a huge amount of knowledge, and I think they work very hard. But, they work in a system that encourages them to not fail students because I believe they are under implicit, if not explicit, pressure to do so from the university. I see this on a daily basis. Students who miss class, who don’t do their work, who are constantly late and don’t participate whatsoever have no trouble in receiving passing grades. That is a crime against education. As you can tell it pisses me off because I take my education very seriously.
I can’t understand why no one writing in domestic newspapers seems to get this. Why not take these universities to task? The funding is there. The system is in place. If students were suddenly faced with the threat and possibility of actually flunking out of school I have no doubt that Korean universities would see a huge improvement overnight. But, for some reason that just doesn’t happen. And until it does happen Korean Universities are going to continue to flounder in international waters no matter what kind of system they try to import.
