High School in Korea

By Nicole Alanko, M&M TIPster

As the world rapidly changes, education becomes more important for our future. American eighth graders placed ninth in the world in 2007 for its math and science scores according to the Trends in International Math and Science Study (TIMSS), a study done every four years comparing the average scores with countries around the world. The scores are averages from all of the students that took it in that country. The United States scored 500, which is the TIMSS average.

South Korea placed second in the TIMSS with a score of 597. The South Korean economy is growing rapidly. It’s among the world’s twenty largest economies. Despite the economic problems of the past few years, its economy is growing by 0.2%, while ours is declining by 2.4%, which means that the value of their goods and services is increasing much more than ours.

The vision of the Ministry of Education is outlined on their website, with their goal being “to build a first class advanced country,” and they see education as the way to get there.

“Education is a project that requires long lengths of time and efforts, just like planting and growing a tree,” says Byong Man Ahn, Minister of Education, on the Ministry’s official website.

“This is a sector that requires extensive dialogues, long-term visions, and thorough deliberation. It is most important to look far out to the future when planning and implementing education policies.”

The typical high school in South Korea is similar to those in the United States. Students participate in sports and art and other extracurricular programs, and take many rigorous classes. Sung He “Lauren” Jeon, a Korean teenager studying in America, talked about the school life in Korea. “We have all kinds of clubs and after school activities. However...Korea is intensively concentrated on the academic aspect,” she said in an email.

Students attend specialized high schools if they are interested in the arts or other areas, and curriculum is changed based on the focus of the school. Only 0.2% of high school aged students attend these special schools, according to the Ministry of Education.

“In those schools, they minimize the requirements of academic subjects and emphasize programs like vocal training, music, and physical training (or whatever is needed in order to major in those careers),” said Sung He, “The drawback is as soon as one enters those specialized high school or middle school, one will get really hard time to get back to normal high school (because of extremely different requirements of each high school).”

“I think the unique thing is Korean students learn much more stuff in short time period. So, they know more stuff,” says Sung He, and then adds, “In order to fulfill these requirements, they are very persistent and strong.”


For more information on South Korea:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ks.html
http://english.mest.go.kr/main.jsp?idx=0101010101
http://english.mest.go.kr/main.jsp?idx=0401010101
http://english.mest.go.kr/main.jsp?idx=0201010101


For more information about Athens-Clarke County schools, Georgia, and the United States: https://www.georgiastandards.org/standards/Pages/BrowseStandards/GPS_by_Grade_Level_K-8.aspx
http://www.doe.k12.ga.us/
http://www.clarke.k12.ga.us/
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html
http://www.ed.gov/

Nicole Alanko, 16, is a junior at Riverheads High School in Staunton, Virginia.
Many thanks to Sung He Jeon for her input for this article