As I’m winding down my contract here in Korea I’d like to quickly discuss what many foreigners do here: teach.
There are roughly 25,000 native English teachers scattered throughout South Korea, most residing in the larger metros.
And where do they teach?
Usually not public schools. The vast majority teach in private academies called hagwons (I’ve mentioned them here). Unless you grew up in East Asia, you probably haven’t seen anything like them.
These aren’t like private schools that simply mimic whatever the public schools create, rather, these are intensive extracurricular programs that focus solely on one or two subjects.
For example, a typical Korean kid that enters middle school has the following schedule:
- Goes to public school from 8am-4pm
- Has a 30 minute break to eat/drive to their hagwon
- Goes to the hagwon from 5-11pm (sometimes even 1am)
- Goes home and study
- Gets 6 hours of sleep
- Repeats six days a week (yes, they go to school on Saturdays)
Note:
- Sometimes they may only go to an English hagwon every other day, alternating with a math or science academy
- Even kids as young as kindergarten participate in these daily cram academies
It’s absolutely insane from a perspective of fostering creativity/innovation/individualism and one of the leading causes for suicide (tons of stress, zero fun). In fact, if there is one statistic that no one probably wants to be number one in, it’s suicide… which Korea currently is.
While this topic deserves more space, some people have asked me how much Korean parents spend on this extra education. According to some recent numbers, about $15 billion.
According to the CIA Factbook there are 8.4 million kids between the ages of 0-14. So let’s cheat and say the same amount for 5-18. That means that parents spend roughly $2000 a year per child on language schools alone.
And people wonder why Korea has the lowest birth rate in the world (seriously, at 1.08 it ranks dead last). After all, relative to middle class families in the West, Koreans earn about 30% less. So in order to afford this education, they have fewer kids.
Anyways, it’s a pretty insane situation especially considering many of these kids are sent to hagwons that have utter crap for curriculum (rote memorization), so it’s a complete waste of their time (apparently its systemic as it pervades their Higher Education system too).
For instance, some of the new kids I get at the beginning of each semester have been going to hagwons for years, but are simply incapable of saying or answering simple sentences like “What is your name?”
Joshua Snyder has more on this and provides the best quote summarizing the situation: too much of a good thing can be bad. Agreed.
And on a slightly different topic you may be interested in my most recent LRC piece on North Korea. If you like it, you may also enjoy a couple of complimentary pieces that I’ve run into lately:
A little taste of North Korea
Inside a North Korean Arcade (be sure to read the comment from Justin too)
The Odd Couple
North Koreans visit Tesco in China to escape starvation