Under the influence of the Asian financial crisis, the South Korean government changed the policy of average education since the founding of the people's Republic of China after entering the new century, and began to promote "education of talents". A group of private high schools with the right of self-admission, high fees and a higher proportion of top universities emerge as the times require-these popular "elite schools" are considered to be the "preparatory schools" of South Korea's top universities.
Under the obsession of this abnormal "success study", the pursuit of formal equality in education reform may only be a futile attempt. The South Korean government initially allowed private schools to exist to meet the demand for educational diversification. But in recent years, private schools have become more and more famous "through trains" for a small number of elite children, which is more and more inconsistent with its original intention and runs counter to the principle of providing fair educational opportunities advocated by the South Korean government. In today's South Korea, a measure of the quality of a high school is the theory of key universities. All schools focus not on 'subject majors', but on 'first-class universities' The number of students. This is true of both self-discipline and special purpose, which is why the government has launched the new policy of reform. " Said Jin Rongren.
In this meeting, the word "equity" was repeatedly mentioned in the text for more than 20 times. On October 14, the South Korean Ministry of Education announced that, on November 7th, the South Korean Ministry of Education announced that, In order to improve the fairness of the education, the private high school will be abolished nationwide from March 2025, and the students in these schools will be selected in the same way as ordinary high school.
Still, many of South Korea's parents are still willing to send their children at all costs to a limited number of elite secondary schools with a limited number of top universities. Because in South Korea, taking the meaning of a well-known university is very high, it is thought to have an impact on a person's key to getting married to almost all of his life.
(picture source:搜狗图片)
Kim Sang-kun, a former South Korean minister of education, said at a 2017 seminar that foreign language high schools and private high schools have become "through trains" for college admission, a phenomenon that should be stopped and ranked, and that these schools have deviated from the purpose set up at the time and become "cram schools" for college entrance examination. "We start class at eight o'clock in the morning and finish school at four o'clock in the afternoon, but the students often study at school until ten o'clock in the evening before going home." Jin Xizhen still remembers the life of doing exercises in high school day and night.
In 2002, the Law on the Promotion of Excellence Education, enacted in South Korea, came into force to give special education to talented and intelligent students. Since then, a variety of science high schools, foreign language high schools and other special purpose schools began to appear. Public high schools, such as those affiliated to Lihua Women's University, have also taken advantage of the transformation in order to win a better reputation and a better source of "pinching" students. Over time, Korean high schools have in fact been divided into "first-class" and "second-rate" and other unique "levels." In order to enter a famous school, the pressure of students to go to school is increased ahead of time, while parents have to overbear the higher cost of education. The seemingly glamorous "elite high school" has actually become A``enclosing city'' --people outside the city wanted to come in, and the people in the city were overloaded.
What is the purpose of education? In South Korea, the question seems to have been simplified to a standard answer-a diploma from a leading university. "all parents and students like to send more students to schools in key universities, and that's the criterion for judging the quality of a school." Jin Rongren, a 21-year-old junior at Seoul University, said.
"We really need to change the status quo, and the easiest way is this policy. That's what most people want, too. " As a personal experience of South Korea's current education system, Kim Rong-Jen said. But he also questioned that the results of the policy would not be as good as expected. Korean society once prided itself on the "equal opportunity" education system, but now people's confidence in education as the "greatest tool" to achieve social equality is gradually disappearing. Behind the debate over the existence and abolition of private elite schools, what is reflected is the increasingly serious idea of "only school theory" in Korean society for decades.
However, the social injustice caused by meritocracy has come under fire as two successive South Korean presidents, Park Geun-hye and Wen Jae-yin, have been accused of a scandal over their children's admission to school. "there is an urgent demand for fairness in education." Speaking at a ministerial education policy meeting in October, South Korean President Wen Jae-yin said, "because of the lack of public trust, the education system is facing a crisis and more and more people feel desperate. They believe that education has become a means of inheriting parents' socio-economic status."
The abolition of elite schools eliminates only the literal inequality in the admission clause, and as long as deeper inequalities in society persist, all "equal education" policies may be an illusion of fairness.
