Education Fever: Society, Politics, and the Pursuit of Schooling in South Korea

Hawai‘i Studies on Korea

by Michael J. Seth

In the half century after 1945, South Korea went from an impoverished, largely rural nation ruled by a succession of authoritarian regimes to a prosperous, democratic industrial society. No less impressive was the country's transformation from a nation where a majority of the population had no formal education to one with some of the world's highest rates of literacy, high school graduates, and university students. Drawing on their premodern and colonial heritages as well as American education concepts, South Koreans have been largely successful in creating a schooling system that is comprehensive, uniform in standard, and universal. The key to understanding this educational transformation is South Korean society's striking, nearly universal preoccupation with schooling-what Korean's themselves call their education fever.



This volume explains how Koreans' concern for achieving as much formal education as possible appeared immediately before 1945 and quickly embraced every sector of society. Through interviews with teachers, officials, parents, and students and an examination of a wide range of written materials in both Korean and English, Michael Seth explores the reasons for this social demand for education and how it has shaped nearly every aspect of South Korean society. He also looks at the many problems of the Korean educational system: the focus on entrance examinations, which has tended to reduce education to test preparation; the overheated competition to enter prestige schools; the enormous financial burden placed on families for costly private tutoring; the inflexibility created by an emphasis on uniformity of standards; and the misuse of education by successive governments for political purposes.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Education

320 pages, Hardcover

Published September 30, 2002

Reviews

[Jo · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you want to understand the current focus and (literal) education fever held by students from South Korea, based on Korea's history of colonial rules, loss of control/usage of native language, and American educational influences, this book is your answer. Well written, engaging, and extremely informative, Seth proves to be a reliable narrator.

[Catherine Pryde · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good summary of South Korean educational system after the war till the first decade of 21th century. For those who are curious about how South Korea made itself a place in the club of G21, through one and only one way: Education.

[M · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was very dry, but I learned a lot about the history of education in Korea. It only covered until about 2000, though.