South Korea’s Hagwon Culture: A Failure of Education?

By Lalin Duangphatra

CSAT: A national-scale phenomenon explained

The College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT), abbreviated as ‘Suneung’ in Korean, is a university entrance exam students sit in their final year of high school, administered by the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation (KICE). Composed of five core subjects and lasting for eight hours (Lee, 2001), this important ‘examination hell’ is perceived as a life-and-death deciding factor for the rest of students’ lives (Kang, 2016). It is almost impossible to obtain a perfect score, with just three who did so nationwide in 2023 and only one in the so-called ‘hardest exam’ of 2022 (The Dong-A Ilbo, 2022). To illustrate its national significance, on the day of the exam, military training and flights are rescheduled to avoid causing any disturbance (Hu, 2015), the parents queue up at temples to pray for their children (Lee, 2001), enterprises and banks open at later hours to minimise traffic jams while police cars offer rides for test takers to arrive at examination venues on time (Lee, 2011).

In a society where intelligence is judged through academic records (Kim, 2021), receiving an acceptance letter from a renowned university guarantees one’s lifelong success and prosperity. Top university graduates end up becoming high-ranking officials or working at highly reputable firms with substantial earnings (Kim & Lee, 2004). According to Sookmyung University business professor Kwon Soonwon, working for a small company means becoming a second-class citizen with long work days and few benefits. It is no wonder that South Koreans fiercely strive for educational accomplishment with an aim to climb up the social ladder.

With a daily average of five hours of rest, as specified by former Education Minister Ahn Byongman (Lee, 2011), high schoolers relentlessly cope with heavy workloads, multiplied by the burden to meet families’ unrealistic expectations. Chronic fatigue, hopelessness, dissatisfaction, and fear of parental disappointment (Kang, 2016) induce tragic social implications such as mental health deterioration and household conflicts. In 2015, the OECD stated that South Korea’s depression and suicide rates were at record levels, with over a million students in need of psychiatric counselling, and highlighted that suicide was the number one cause of death among Korean teenagers (Lee, Calonge, & Hultberg, 2019). Students sacrifice entertainment and relaxation to earn a gold medal in this educational race, and some even voluntarily redo a year in order to secure a spot in their dream institution (Lee, 2011).

Educational Policies Through the Decades

Post-colonial history may explain where South Korea’s education fever derived from. Upon the separation of the Korean Peninsula, wartime devastation and the scarcity of natural resources left the nation in complete ruins, including its learning facilities (Ministry of Education, 2015). Based on traditional Confucianist principles, the government first attempted the democratisation of education with the 1948 Education Act (Nuffic, 2015) to promote national integration and the emergence of a qualified labour force by implementing a ‘low-cost approach’ to stimulate educational demand. A popular saying ‘the only resource we have is the people’ clearly portrays the importance of the country’s manpower. A 96% literacy rate and free primary education were achieved in 1958 and 1959 respectively, before compulsory schooling was expanded up to a junior secondary level. The enrollment rate showed an upsurge from 27.2% in 1980 to 72% in 2012 (Ministry of Education, 2015).

The rapid proliferation of mass education and the accessibility of the test-based system since the 1960s and 1970s boosted competition in this single-track ladder-type system (Adams & Gottlieb, 1993). The High School Equalization Policy (HSEP) later eradicated the middle-school entrance exam in 1972 (Lee, Calonge, & Hultberg, 2019) and successive governments have attempted to promote the competitiveness of regional universities. Nonetheless, South Koreans still intensely compete to enter the most prestigious institutions: KAIST (Kang, 2016), POSTECH (Tim, 2018), and the top three “SKY" universities, consisting of Seoul National University, Korea University, and Yonsei University, to have their future ensured. Since the 1980s, what has gradually become a common method to get into prestigious schools is through tutoring services at private institutions named ‘Hagwons’.

The Emergence of Hagwons as a Culture

OECD’s 2014 report revealed that 80.9% of primary schoolers receive some kind of supplementary education (Ock, 2016). Hagwons or private academies offer special lessons ranging from job-hunting to flight attendant preparation to rapping, but almost half are dedicated to school enrollment (Kim, 2001). It is no surprise that final-year students attend Hagwons after school until midnight, revising for the CSAT, but what is indeed a huge issue is the fact that most of the total knowledge they acquire is at these tutoring centres (Minjung, 2022). There is limited motivation invested in class from both teachers and students, as both know the necessary lessons will be taught at Hagwons anyway (Lee, 2001).

One answer to why education from private institutions went from being an option to a norm is that the one freely provided is insufficient, notably for higher-income households for whom there is a visible difference between their educational demand and what is presently supplied by the state (Kim & Lee, 2004). The problems of ineffective teaching methods, unqualified personnel, overcrowded classrooms, and run-down equipment, all of which are negatively correlated with the rising income of parents, indirectly pressure families into looking for an alternative to provide their sons and daughters with ‘proportionate’ academic needs (Lee, 2021). As this demand-supply gap has gotten bigger, private coaching services have mushroomed drastically and emerged as a market of their own, becoming a source of teachers’ extra income (Kim & Lee, 2004). ‘The higher the parental income, the more the expense on education leads to unequal access to the now ‘essential’ supplementary education. It is without a doubt that a financially privileged student would get a headstart in the academic realm, resulting in a vicious cycle of social inequality.

Consequences in Societal Transformation

In response, the government has exercised legal efforts to set curfews as well as to ban Hagwons that leaked exam papers from school employees which introduced unfairness among students. But the integral role of parents in a child’s academic path made it difficult to establish a change. A social status of outgoing and affluent ‘Pig mums’ was established, where mothers are in charge of not only managing their children’s educational process but also forming networks with other Pig mums, using personal influence to give advantage to their little ones. Hagwons as a profit-driven business attracts Pig mums with an ‘education trap’, where parents are persistently pressured to overinvest in private tutoring in order to keep up with other families’ expenditures.

Anyhow, the tremendous positive externality education produces stops families from reducing education-based spending and instead encourages the accumulation of debt and lower demographic growth to invest more in one child (Lee, Calonge, & Hultberg, 2019). This phenomenon also relates to interclass marriage, as poorer families often send their sons to get educated first, and these bachelors end up marrying female graduates from richer households (Lee, 2001). Urbanisation is another result of South Korea’s obsession with educational achievements (Adams & Gottlieb, 1993). Real estate prices skyrocketed in the Seocho and Gangnam districts of Seoul, notably in Daechi-dong, a prime area for private group lectures. In 2006, The Korea Times reported that apartment complexes located in those areas are priced more than twice the average in Seoul (Lankov, 2009). It is believed that a student in an environment where his classmates’ ability is greater than his own would produce a positive influence on him (Kim & Lee, 2004). Cafes nearby were subsequently rebranded into co-working spaces and study spots to attract young customers (Kim, 2001).

A Future Outlook on South Korea’s Education

As a member of the OECD Development Assistance Committee and G20 (Ministry of Education, 2015), South Korea is an economic powerhouse that spends a higher percentage of GDP on education compared to the OECD average, with a large portion of it originating from household spending on private education (Kim & Lee, 2004). Yet poor academic performance and lack of English language fluency, as well as the ineffectiveness of educational policies, may put into question whether the money spent actually causes flourishment or withering.

Today’s university-oriented curriculum gives value to academically talented students who collect straight As in their grade books and succeed in scientific, mathematical, engineering, or medical fields. The lack of creativity and diversity, and the problem of mismatch between high-skilled workers and availability of job positions has become a challenge for South Korea (Lee, Calonge, & Hultberg, 2019). Nonetheless, multiple initiatives are envisioned in educational reform. For instance, the Free Semester Program (FSP), where kids are not graded on exams, but on participation and involvement, aims to foster creativity, cognitive, and socio-behavioural skills (Thompson, 2018). The SMART initiative, which involves digital textbooks and online lessons, would equip students with technological expertise for creative economic development (Jeong, 2020).

Conclusion

Taking into consideration students’ degrading mental health, the heavy reliance on Hagwons over schools, as well as the ‘education trap’ parents face, South Korea’s educational system contains a deep-rooted societal problem. It is necessary to reconsider what defines a ‘good education’, and whether productivity and quality of learning are actually determined by the number of hours spent cramming and memorising for exams. The existing Hagwon culture has shaped the education of South Koreans to be neither free nor equal, instead emphasising social inequality. A student’s acceptance into prestigious universities would inevitably bolster the parents’ glory and social status, but it remains doubtful that this would lead to the child’s happiness.

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