Moon Jae-in of the liberal Democratic Party was elected South Korea's new president early Wednesday.
He began his five-year term with confirmation of his victory by the National Election Commission (NEC). Moon said he would push for a law which bans the requirement of stating one's academic background on job application forms to prevent people from getting evaluated only by grades.
He also envisions integrating all state universities including the nation's top school, Seoul National University, to abolish the ranking of schools. Moon also vowed to abolish foreign language high schools and international high schools, as well as autonomous high schools which run their own curriculum, and turn all of them into regular high schools offering free education.
The ministry was denounced for holding too much power over universities, by controlling funds allocated to them. There are also views that education policies cannot be devised in the long term, as the administration changes every five years.
Status quo
Korea's education system is defined as a means to enter prestigious universities. This is because workplaces evaluate job applicants based on their alma maters. This makes it even tougher for young people to find jobs in the tight job market. Parents put their children in private academies starting in elementary school, with hopes of them getting a head start and outperforming their peers, as competition to enter the top universities is sky-high. The costs of private education pose a huge burden. Students have no time to discover and nurture their talents or explore careers, because they are so focused on their studies for the CSAT. They decide on their college majors based on their CSAT scores, oftentimes leading to mismatches and difficulties in finding jobs.
Abolishing rankings
As a means to address this deep-rooted problem, Moon said he will legislate a law which bans discrimination based on academic background.The universities will co-recruit and provide graduates with diplomas from the entire network of schools. Students and faculty members will be able to earn credits and teach classes at all of the schools. Moon has also pledged to abolish hierarchy at the high school level. This will be done by turning foreign language, international and autonomous high schools, which are known as prestigious schools with their own curriculum, into regular schools that offer free education.
Expanding career exploration opportunities
Moon said he will improve and expand the program currently running at middle schools, which frees students from the regular curriculum for one semester and allows them to explore their career options.
At high schools, his plans on enabling students to select the classes they wish to take, as university students do. This will allow them to take classes based on their aptitudes, enabling them to prepare for their future careers. All of these policies will be pushed forward by a newly established independent state education committee, instead of the education ministry. This will prevent education plans from being halted with a change in administration every five years.
Commentary by Youngah Kim, Education Manager, British Council Korea
Now that South Korea elected a new president after recent impeachment of former president Park, Korean citizens are very excited for some of his new government policies.
Parents and students especially welcome his education reformation plan to focus more on public education sector in order to reduce burdens for private education.
Because the new president wants to abolish foreign language high schools, international high schools, and autonomous high schools which run their own curriculum, parents who want to give special education to their children might shift their attention to sending them abroad for specialised education. This might raise the recruitment rate of boarding schools as wealthy parents would like to send their kids to a foreign country right after they finish primary schools to earn enough time to prepare for A-levels. Moon plans to scale down Ministry of Education and integrate all state universities into one, some students who are dissatisfied with Korean's HE systems might try to earn a degree in a foreign country.