Mode of Education

In Korea, education is a vital part of life. It is one of the most important and valuable to asset to oneself. Everyone wants to be educated as much as they can be, and anyone who isn’t is not worth much. This is because everyone in Korea holds education in high regard. The education system in Korea consists of 6 years in primary school, 3 years in middle school, 3 years in high school and finally 4 years in college. Compared to Singapore’s education system, their middle school would be our secondary school, high school similar to the junior colleges we have here, and college would be the equivalent of the universities here. This system is very similar to that of Japan’s.

(Structure of the Korean Education System, 1991)

However, the interesting thing about the Korean education system is that it does not follow the education hierarchy completely. On a normal basis, the standard and difficulty should increase as one graduates and advances into a higher level on the education hierarchy. Yet, it is proven that many students in Korea find high school life the most taxing as compared to college life. This is probably because most parents pin their hopes on their children to get into a good college, causing competition to be stiff and fierce when taking college entrance exams. It is also not easy to get into a college due to limited spaces available in each college and the limited number of colleges that are present in Korea itself. The college entrance exams, also known as College Scholastic Ability Test (Su-neung) has five sections: Korean Language/Reading, Mathematics, English, various ‘elective’ subjects in the social and physical sciences, and Foreign Languages or Chinese Characters and Classics.

For those interested, you can read this article that writes about Korean college students’ lives. http://www.suite101.com/content/recipe-for-success-or-not-a16232

Korean college students may be blindly working hard to trudge forward through their college lives just for that piece of certification, and this kind of scenario does not only happen in Korea. We can see it in Singapore as well. However, the cruelty of reality leaves students with no choice but to continue forth until they get recognized with their certification in the ever competitive working world.