south korea education statistics
Compulsary education duration: 11 Ranked 28th. However, despite strong advances in modernization and internationalization, the Korean education system is still somewhat insular and its HEIs continue to trail other Asian countries like China, Japan and India in terms of international journal citations and other ranking criteria like employer reputation. As in the U.S., curricula include core and elective general education subjects, predominantly taken within the first two years, and mandatory and elective subjects in the major. The Economist Intelligence Unit, meanwhile, recently ranked Korea 12th out of 35 countries in its “Worldwide Educating for the Future Index,” tied with the United States. [6] Korean National Development Institute: A Window into Korean Education, 2017, p.22. Year-over-year enrollment growth from Korea has persistently declined since 2011/12, whereas year-over-year growth for China and India increased by approximately 12 percent and 7 percent, respectively. Seven out of 10 South Korean students used private education and single-member families accounted for nearly 30 percent of the country's households in 2017, data showed Wednesday. The name of vocationally oriented high schools has changed over the years—they used to be called vocational high schools, then technical high schools, but are currently referred to as “specialized schools.” Vocational upper-secondary education prepares students for entry into the labor force as skilled workers, as well as for further education. The U.S. is by far the most popular study destination among Korean students. 22% more than South Korea 9 Ranked 134th. Korea today has four times as many international students than in 2006, and it is becoming an increasingly important international education hub in Asia. Find Out (All numbers are according to 2017 KESS statistics. They criticize that the growing diversity on Korean campuses is “just for show … that Korean universities primarily attract foreign students as a means to clear ends. Most Korean students study at the undergraduate level. The curriculum is divided into a general education component of about 32 percent. In an attempt to move away from an overly test-driven system, the current curriculum emphasizes the fostering of creative thinking and prioritizes essays over multiple-choice tests. Standard degrees awarded include the Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science, but there is a multitude of credential names, such as the Bachelor of Economics, Bachelor of Information Science, or Bachelor of Statistics, etc. Credentials awarded are the Bachelor of Medicine or Doctor of Medicine, and the Bachelor of Dentistry, Doctor of Dental Medicine, or Doctor of Dental Surgery. This sudden expansion overburdened the system and resulted in overcrowded classrooms and teacher shortages—problems that caused the Korean government to begin levying a dedicated education tax in 1982 in order to generate revenues for accommodating growing demand. In the 1980s, Korea’s government began to strategically invest in human capital development, research, and technological innovation. Moon’s bold education reform proposals seek to eventually integrate all state universities into one large university system. As of 2014, 98 percent of Koreans went on to upper-secondary and completed high school at minimum. Entry-to-practice degrees in medicine and dentistry are either earned upon completion of long single-tier programs of six-years’ duration entered after high school, or four-year graduate-entry programs on top of a bachelor’s degree. France, Malaysia, New Zealand, China, and Italy are other top destination countries for Koreans. This demographic shift has caused the closure of thousands of schools throughout Korea, almost 90 percent of them located in rural regions, which are increasingly being bled out by a rapid out-migration to the cities. Compulsary education duration: Number of years students are required to be enrolled in school for all levels of education. ELT, on the other hand, doesn’t appear to be a factor—Korean ELT enrollments have remained flat between 2014 and 2017, despite increased recruitment efforts by Canadian ELT providers. Korean history is a mandatory subject for all candidates. In 2017, the MOE already shuttered eight “unviable” universities. These efforts are bearing fruit. Students may also earn a degree in self-study mode through Korea’s National Institute for Lifelong Education (NILE). Student surveys have shown that poor grades and fears of failure are major reasons for suicidal thoughts, while Korea simultaneously has a growing teenage drinking problem. In Korea, the percentage of 25-64 year-olds who attained a bachelor's or equivalent tertiary education degree is one of the highest among countries with available data. Two-year master’s programs usually require at least 24 credits plus a thesis for graduation, but some programs have higher credit requirements. Even at coeducational schools, individual classes may still be taught separately for girls and boys. By some accounts, many Korean children spend 16 hours or more a day at school and in after-class prep schools, called hagwons. The test is mostly in multiple-choice format; the final CSAT report lists the scores as well as percentile rankings in all subjects except for English and Korean history. According to Statistics Korea (2012), 84.2% of all foreigners in South Korea have the intention to remain in the country. Private households, meanwhile, spend large sums of money on private English tutoring. The highest-ranking university in South Korea is Seoul National University, which is ranked at number 60. Seoul National University ranks 36th worldwide and is the 11th highest ranked institution among Asian universities, followed by the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (rank 40), Pohang University of Science and Technology (83), Korea University (86), and Sungkyunkwan University (100). South Korea’s commitment to invest in education pays off. Such initiatives helped to significantly increase the percentage of foreign faculty at Korean HEIs[5] and fueled rapid increases in research output. The reasons for this reversal are unclear, but the shift in trends coincided with Canada expanding its admission quotas for skilled immigrants—a factor that may have played at least some role in attracting more Koreans to the country. The McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) noted in a 2013 study that more than 50 percent of middle class households were “cashflow-constrained” and that Korea now has the lowest private savings rate in the OECD. There were 17 provincial and metropolitan offices and 176 district offices administering education at the local level in 2016. Korean authorities have been less forceful in implementing school equalization for high schools than for middle schools—only about 60 percent of upper-secondary schools are currently located within so-called “equalization zones.” In these districts, admission is based on a lottery system, provided that students pass a general competency examination. At the same time, the MOE is attempting to make passing the examination easier by replacing percentile rankings with absolute grading in the second foreign language and Chinese characters subject tests within the next four years. The Korean government seeks to promote labor market entry directly after high school and strengthen vocational skills training with an “employment first, advancement to university later” approach. Korea’s ambitions were set back when the number of international students declined between 2012 and 2014, but inbound mobility has since increased strongly. Educational attainment in contemporary Korea is of paramount social importance and strongly correlated with social mobility, income levels, and positions of power. In 2004, there were about 5,700…. Click here for a PDF file of the academic documents referred to below. 48-53. As of 2018, 170 universities had obtained accreditation from KUAI. The data of the UNESCO Institute Statistics provides the most reliable point of reference for comparison since it is compiled according to one standard method. The quality assurance and accreditation of universities falls under the purview of the Korean Council for University Education (KCUE), an independent, non-governmental university association. Source tables; UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Deepti Mani, Research Associate, WES, and Stefan Trines, Research Editor, WENR. One Korean credit unit usually denotes one contact hour (50 minutes) taken over 15 or 16 weeks, and most courses bear three credit units. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 70 percent of 24- to 35-year-olds in the nation of 51.5 million people have completed some form of tertiary education—the highest percentage worldwide and more than 20 percentage points above comparable attainment rates in the United States. Since its early history, Korean education has been influenced significantly by Confucian values particularly in its emphasis of formal learning and scholarship through China more than fifteen centuries ago. Given the ubiquity of private tutoring, students from rural regions and lower income households tend to score lower in the CSAT and are disadvantaged in university admissions in general compared with students from affluent metropolitan centers like Seoul. Graduates are awarded certificates of graduation that are formally equivalent to high school diplomas from other types of schools and that provide access to tertiary education. Many Korean families now worry “that overseas study is no longer the guarantee of economic security that it once was.”. However, classes in many coeducational high schools are still divided along gender lines. To earn a self-study degree, students must pass a qualifying examination conducted by the government for each year of study. Korean is the language of instruction in schools, even though private international schools and certain specialized high schools offer English-medium instruction (EMI). 67% more than South Korea 3 Ranked 195th. In the 1950s, elementary education was made compulsory for all children, which led to the universalization of elementary education by the 1960s. The final credential may simply be called Associate Degree, or Associate of Science, or Associate of Arts. With respect to overseas education, such considerations are likely influenced by the fact that some Korean employers are reluctant to hire graduates of foreign schools. This extreme competitiveness has created a number of social problems: Suicide, for instance, is the leading cause of death among teens in Korea, which has the highest suicide rate overall in the entire OECD. Master’s degree programs (Suksa) are two years in length and studied in graduate schools, most of which are incorporated into universities. After three or more years on the job, teachers must complete an additional 180-hour training program to earn a higher-level Grade I Teacher Certificate. The number of coeducational schools has since increased significantly, but the majority of Korea’s schools are still single-sex. Sejong City now houses the majority of government ministries and agencies, including the administrative headquarters of the MOE, which controls most aspects of education. South Korea faces the challenge of an aging population. Private HEIs include top research universities like Korea University, Sungkyunkwan University, and Yonsei University, as well as various for-profit providers of lesser quality. IQ and the Wealth of Nations. Graduate-entry programs don’t include the pre-medicine component, but students must pass a medical or dental education eligibility test and are expected to have completed certain prerequisite courses. After completing the study program, candidates are eligible to obtain a Grade II Teacher Certificate, but must pass a comprehensive governmental employment examination if they want to teach in public schools. Elite private high schools (autonomous schools) and international schools that teach foreign curricula are slated to be turned into tuition-free schools that teach standard national curricula in order to rein in elite schools. As the New York Times noted in 2015, since 1982 “… nearly 3,600 schools have closed across South Korea, most of them in rural towns, for lack of children. Most programs are two years in length (75 to 80 credits), but three-year programs (120 credits or more) also exist in fields like nursing, rehabilitation therapy, early childhood education, interior design, or broadcasting. In the latter case, programs usually take at least three years to complete, including two years (30 credits) of course work, a passing score on a comprehensive examination, and the defense of a dissertation. Korean medicine is a traditional East Asian system that relies on herbal medicine, acupuncture, or cupping therapies. The proportion of coeducational schools has increased by almost ten percent. Its standard structure includes associate degrees awarded by junior colleges, and four-year bachelor’s degrees, master’s degrees, and doctoral degrees awarded by universities. Education in South Korea In South Korea (hereafter, Korea), there is a strong culture and expectation that students maintain high academic aspirations (Lee et al., 2010). Korea’s junior colleges, polytechnics, industrial universities, and some other universities offer two- or three-year vocationally oriented post-secondary programs leading to associate degrees in fields like engineering, business administration, health care, fashion design, social work, secretarial studies, or agriculture. University admissions in Korea are highly competitive, especially at top institutions like the SKY universities, which admit only the top 2 percent of CSAT scorers. The number of Korean students in Canada has declined significantly over the past decade. In addition, the government promotes policies similar to affirmative action by requiring mandatory special admissions quotas for students from rural regions. Public institutions are directly supervised by the MOE and private HEIs operate under similar rules as public institutions. Various initiatives, from the “Brain Pool” and “Brain Korea 21” programs of the 1990s to the current Industry-University Cooperation project, have therefore been dedicated to boosting the research output and international competitiveness of Korean universities. SNU and Sungkyunkwan University are the highest ranked Korean institutions. The same as South Korea 6 Ranked 133th. Along with the other Asian “tiger economies” of Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan, Korea represents one of the most remarkable economic success stories of the 20th century, envied by many developing countries up to today. According to statistics from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), there were 23,050 Korean students in Canada in 2017—25 percent less than in 2007 when enrollments peaked at 36,800. The majority of vocational high schools currently use learning modules developed by the MOE and the Korea Research Institute for Vocational Education and Training on the basis of Korea’s National Competency Standards framework. Fully 57 percent of Koreans enrolled in degree programs abroad studied in the U.S. in 2017, followed by Japan (12 percent), Australia (6 percent), the United Kingdom (5 percent), and Canada (4.5 percent), as per UIS data. In grades 11 and 12, students then choose elective subjects in addition to common subjects like Korean, mathematics, English, and a second foreign language. The advancement rate from lower-secondary middle school to upper-secondary high school stood at 99 percent as early as 1996. Academic transcripts usually provide detailed information about academic performance, class ranking, and attendance. Following the scandal, leftist President Moon Jae-in won a landslide election victory in May 2017 running on an anti-corruption platform that included promises to reform the education system and reduce youth unemployment. Prohibited by law but law is unclear and the cause is supported by business leaders, therefore homeschoolers do not generally experience issues with authorities. Confucianism instilled facilities like governance of men by merit, social mobility through education, and … The following year, it tripled to about 17,000, in 2012 it was about 24,000.” Meanwhile, in the U.S., Korean ELT enrollments have dropped by 17 percent since 2015. 5. But the Moon administration is certainly pushing ahead with reforms. In reality, however, this minimum requirement is of little practical relevance in present-day Korea. While the vast majority of candidates pass the test, students who fail can retake it. In 1945, Korea had an estimated adult literacy rate of only 22 percent. To this end, Korea in 2008 established a new type of vocational school, the so-called Meister schools, which teach curricula tailored to industry needs in fields like banking, social services, dental hygiene, maritime industries, or semiconductor development. By most accounts, Korean students are interested in studying in the U.S. because of the standing and reputation of U.S. institutions in world university rankings. In 2010, Korea implemented a mandatory independent accreditation process for universities under the purview of the Korean University Accreditation Institute (KUAI), an organization affiliated with the Korean Council of University Education, a private association of Korea’s universities. Various measures have been adopted to achieve these objectives. Universities in provincial regions are being supported through the imposition of mandatory employment quotas for local graduates in local industries.[3]. SOURCES: The subjects taught are the same as in elementary education, except for the addition of either technical education or home science. In 2016, 71.7 percent of upper-secondary students were enrolled in general academic schools, compared with 16.6 percent in specialized vocational schools and around 11.5 percent in autonomous schools and special-purpose schools, although these percentages fluctuate from year to year. Graduation from undergraduate programs usually requires an overall grade point average of at least 70 or C (2.00). Curricula typically include a general education component of about 30 percent in addition to major-specific subjects, with an increasing emphasis on internships. Most students choose their electives based on their intended field of study in university. Since then, the number of degree-seeking Korean international students has decreased by 15.8 percent to an estimated 108,608 students in 2017. Usage implies agreement with terms. Those in developed nations have higher literacy rates and at least a basic high school education. The rapid expansion of the higher education system also led to the creation of growing numbers of private institutions of lesser quality with only a minority of the very best students admitted to the top institutions. About 60 percent of these students are enrolled in undergraduate programs at universities, 30.5 percent at junior colleges and other institutions, and 9.5 percent in graduate programs. Private schools are mandated to teach the national curriculum and offer tuition-free education in return for receiving subsidies from the government. The curriculum is standa… However, since 2015 Korean enrollments are back on a growth trajectory and have most recently increased by 9 percent between 2016 and 2017. Between 2011 and 2016, the number of Korean students who entered higher education programs declined by 10 percent. Source tables; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeschooling_international_status_and_statistics; CIA World Factbooks 18 December 2003 to 28 March 2011; UNESCO Institute for Statistics. We do not implement these annoying types of ads! College and university > Gender parity index, College and university > Share of total education spending, Government spending on education > Proportion of GDP. Source tables; UNESCO Institute for Statistics. During the first two years, pupils study Korean, mathematics, ethics, and general social formation subjects called “wise living,” “pleasant living,” and “we are first graders.” English, social studies, science, arts, music, and physical education are added in the third grade, at which point the social formation subjects are no longer offered. Korean children attend classes 5.5 days a week and spend about 220 days a year in school versus 175 to 180 days in the United States. Instead of enrolling in academic degree programs in countries like the U.S., growing numbers of Koreans now seek to improve their English skills in more affordable ELT schools in places like Malta or the Philippines. All Korean high school students who intend to apply to university must pass the national University College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT), commonly called Suneung in Korean, administered by the Korea Institute of Curriculum and Evaluation (KICE). Rising tuition costs in the U.S. therefore don’t work in favor of increased student inflows from Korea. At 100 percent, universities are not allowed to enter at age five hiring decisions based mostly specific! Schools has since increased significantly, but may also operate as stand-alone institutions socioeconomic status,. 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