By inviting leading Western schools, the government is hoping to address one of the notorious stress points in South Korean society. Many parents want to send children abroad so they can learn English and avoid the crushing pressure and narrow focus of the Korean educational system. The number of South Korean students from elementary school through high school who go abroad for education increased to 27,350 in 2008 from 1,840 in 1999, according to government data...
Lee Kyung-min, 42, a pharmacist in Seoul whose 12-year-old daughter, Jeong Min-joo, attended a private school in Canada for a year and a half, said she knew why families were willing to make sacrifices to send their children away.
“In South Korea, it’s all rote learning for college entrance exams,” Ms. Lee said. “A student’s worth is determined solely by what grades she gets.” She added that competition among parents forced their children to sign up for extracurricular cram sessions that left them with little free time to develop their creativity. “Children wither in our education system,” she said.
So Min-joo’s parents believed that exposing her to a Western school system was worth the $5,000 they paid each month for her tuition and board, 10 times what they would have spent had she studied at home.
So South Korea is now inviting western schools to open outposts in South Korea...to avoid over-dependence on standardized test, which they see as "wither(ing)" their children, while at the same time, the United States, citing foreign competition, is now...depending on standardized tests.
That's because American politicians for whatever reason can't learn from the examples that other nations have set. Take the economy for example. Our politicians are doing exactly what the Japanese did that led to their Lost Decade. What makes our politicians believe that the same actions taken here will produce different results? Seriously, we're not that special.
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