Another National Obsession

Students' Exodus Tells Much About Education at Home

Nothing shows Koreans' excessive educational zeal better than ``wild-geese fathers,'' living apart from their wives and children who are studying abroad.

More than 40,000 elementary, middle and high school students are estimated to be living outside Korea with their mothers, leaving as many fathers at home toiling to cover their expenses in a situation that sociologists claim sometimes develops into a serious family breakup.

Yet this is but one adverse effect of the ``study-abroad bubble,'' which makes it difficult to unreservedly welcome the recent U.S. tally that the number of Korean students in America hit a record of 110,083 in 2008, the largest foreign ethnic group for three years in a row, even topping China and India, each with a population more than 20 times larger than Korea's.

Korea also suffered a deficit of $6 billion in the educational account in its international balance of payments last year, while the nation's private tutoring industry has grown into a $30-billion market, reaffirming the ever-widening gap between the poor education system and yearnings for better learning among a wealthier, more global people.

As elsewhere in the world, studying abroad has been limited here to the brightest and richest. If median-income parents have to sacrifice most of their earnings and even their married lives to help their children gain a leg up in increasingly competitive job markets here and abroad, however, this is a totally different story. Over-motivated, overachieving Koreans should either downgrade their ambition or drastically improve their education system, or both.

The keyword in this vein is how to cultivate ``creative'' thinkers _ not passive crammers. Korean parents, including top educational policymakers, have abandoned creating such an environment in their own country and instead send their children overseas, while blaming the leveled-off public education system for turning even geniuses into fools. They also force their youngsters to just memorize everything and turn themselves into test-taking robots throughout their adolescence because the kids only have to start ``creative learning'' in foreign colleges.

So it should come as no surprise that Korean students in 14 U.S. Ivy League schools recorded the highest dropout rate of 44 percent between 1985 and 2007, far higher than any other country, hence the spread of study-abroad fervor to grade-schoolers and even kindergarteners. ``Why bother to wrestle with this national headache instead of solving it individually and handily by going abroad,''' even officials responsible for education policies seem to think.

But this is why Korea can hardly dream of producing a Nobel laureate in natural science, while neighboring Japan has already turned out 12 recipients, some of whom have neither gone abroad nor speak English. Yes, Japan is the world's second-largest economic power, but even industrial latecomer China is trying hard to reverse a brain drain by improving its education system through massive investment.

President Lee Myung-bak has stressed the need for Korea to outdo competitors in the knowledge-based industry. As long as Korean colleges are bent on picking up excellent students instead of cultivating them, however, Lee's calls will keep ringing hollow. In an ironic coincidence, the President's alma mater, Korea University, is taking the lead in shaking the foundation of public education by grading high schools mostly based on cramming ability.

Unless Korea manages to stop the brain drain by keeping excellent students at home and drawing foreign talent here, the national slogan of ``knowledge power'' will end up as just another ``wild-goose chase."

[출처 : 코리아타임스]