8 ms·

South Korean police impose curfew on late-night studying (2011)

88 points by apsec112 7y ago

Thriptic 7y ago
As the article notes, this is treating the symptom rather than the problem. When you have a system which dramatically favors graduates from top schools, entrance criteria solely based on single exams, and punishment for single exam failures for life (ie if you don't do well on exam 1 you are effectively booted from the prestigious track forever), of course everyone is going to cram relentlessly for exams. If you send people home from cram schools, students will simply be forced to study at home. I'm not sure what the solution is for this (other than to create more slots at good schools or more good schools) but curfews certainly will not work.
- trophycase 7y ago
  Maybe, but it might be a nice wake up call that there is a problem.
- esotericn 7y ago
  It's not like the system is fundamentally better in other countries. In Britain there's a colossal effect from landing a place at a few good schools / universities. We mainly handle that by setting low expectations for most of the populace (e.g. the class system) and gate it by cost.
  - umvi 7y ago
    People always criticize America for having expensive universities but I always thought it was horribly depressing when my German friends told me that their entire future was staked on a single exam. Do poorly and not only can you not get into college but you'll be a sanitation worker for the rest of your life (or similar).
    - barry-cotter 7y ago
      This is bullshit. Most courses in most universities are open admission if you have an Abitur. If you have an Abitur but you want to to a course that’s in high demand and your grades are insufficient you can get in if you’re willing to wait. I met a girl who competed a three year Physiotherapy apprenticeship while waiting to get into Medicine. If you didn’t go to Gymnasium (university prep school) you can get an Abitur in one year after graduating Realschule or you can get a Bachelor’s from a Fachhochschule and then a Master’s from a university. Germany streams more aggressively than the US but the idea that there are no second chances is a joke.
      - arrrg 7y ago
        If you have Abitur is the thing here. You have to have that (yeah, Realschule plus FH works, too, but that’s not exactly the same and also a whole thing). To say nothing of the absolute bonkers aggressive tracking that’s happening early on. It’s not a single test and might not seem as dramatic because of that, but if you actually think about it, it’s horrific. I think this seeming less dramatic (because it’s not a single test but rather something that happens to kids just entering puberty, long before they will ever think about going to university) makes it seem all nice and fair, but actually it’s horrible.
        quelltext 7y ago
        I have a few friends from Germany who started out in Hauptschule and later had to work hard to get their Abitur after the fact. It's possible, though really hard. They tell me there are options to move on from Hauptschule to Realschule, etc. if that's really what you want and have the drive. The problem is the environment. Everyone around you isn't going to college, they're all going to work in some factory or as a salesclerk, and you're a nerd if you try to advance. One other factor here is I think that it's usually the parents who decide your future early on. Yes, there's recommendations by your school, but AFAIK this is not definite and can be overridden within reason. However, if the parents never get the Abitur or have many friends who did, they'll be intimidated, even if your grades are perfect and you got the recommendation to go on the university track. So often they put you in the same school track they took since they know what to expect. It hinders social mobility. On the other hand not everyone wants to go to college, not everyone wants to study and rather get their hands dirty in a job that doesn't require a degree. Forcing those who don't to stay in school (if there's a single track) till the end with a lot of struggling towards the end (and then the stigma of not completing would be bad as well) maybe graduating with bad grades... that doesn't sound ideal either.
- 8bitsrule 7y ago
  If these children only knew what they are losing to 'win', they could respond by failing exam 1. I can only begin to imagine the psychological future for SK. I'm already concerned for parents that would tolerate this hyper-rat-race.
- knzhou 7y ago
  Exams or not, there will be no fix as long as there is zero-sum competition for a scarce good. And in this case, there is necessarily scarcity because prestige is positional: "the top schools" will necessarily always be a small fraction of all schools. (Of course all of this also applies to western countries.)
Mirioron 7y ago
This reads like satire. Surely there are better ways to deal with the problem than using the police. The police probably also have better things to do. In fact, this reads like it's a parody of the US war on drugs. It's so misguided. The article is from 2011. Has the situation improved in South Korea? Because I can see that their results in PISA 2019 were still very good.
- James_Henry 7y ago
  What better way would there be than the police? This seems like just the job for them. In the US at least, it is the police's job to enforce curfew. The situation is, from what I understand, very much the same as it was a decade ago. An interesting article on the topic is here https://www.reuters.com/article/us-southkorea-education-drama-idUSKCN1PS01X https://www.reuters.com/article/us-southkorea-education-dram...
  - Mirioron 7y ago
    A curfew like that doesn't make sense. I would consider this to be extreme government overreach. In a free society you are allowed to study as much as you want and you're allowed to teach as much as you want.
    - snazz 7y ago
      At some point it’s a child welfare problem, right? That’s certainly not outside what the police should be regulating. Of course, the underlying issue is societal and economic.
    - nisse72 7y ago
      They are free to study as much as they want. The curfew is on the business itself. As the quote in the third paragraph says: 'It's the hagwon that's in violation, not you.'
      - Hydraulix989 7y ago
        That sounds like something that is made up.
psychlops 7y ago
This is quite dated. Is there any evidence that this curfew is still in effect?
bitxbit 7y ago
We desperately need to move away from these education systems. They worked well when resources were limited and identifying gifted students took priority. The world is a much different place now and we should focus on individualized curriculum and mastery.
- emodendroket 7y ago
  Resources are still limited.
  - thrwaway69 7y ago
    Give free birth control everywhere and stipend to poor couples including a free state sponsored education program for stopping them from becoming poor parents. Will save the state and possible parents much more in resources to spend. What a simple solution but of course, that won't happen because you need low tier workers in the society that the state and others can leech off from. Rich need their prostitutes, drivers, maids, low cost labor and employees. Society need numbers, labor which they can abuse for cleaning the filth and boosting themselves in a sacrificial ceremony. For example, UP state in india has a population density of 828 persons per km² What good reason do you think there is not in spending money to stop poor people from having kids? I don't get the ethical issue about it other than it being made up by people for patting their backs. Government can ban smoking, drugs, porn, video games, internet sites, alcohol, and many other things to keep you safe from "harming" yourself. Doctors can veto your opinion or voice if they think you are a danger to yourself. All research shows kids living in extreme poverty has a dire future, lot of bad health issues and will most likely remain in poverty. Why can't we ban or at least try to spend money to that cause? 3.6k kids die due to hunger/deficiency every day in india. What if they weren't born? Why have so many people that you need to resort to filtering for everything in life?
    - econcon 7y ago
      >What good reason do you think there is not in spending money to stop poor people from having kids? Dystopian world where people aren't allowed to have kids, just because they are poor? Much better is to make sure poors have enough money to raise their kids. Offer them government assistance.
shadowprofile77 7y ago
That this is so arbitrarily possible in a legal sense speaks very poorly of the South Korean government's notions about individual rights in the home.
- detaro 7y ago
  Regulating the opening time of businesses and inspecting business locations is infringing on individual rights in the home?
mattanimation 7y ago
This was bad when I was in Seoul from 2003-2005 and I couldn't believe how much school was thrown on to kids, like little 5 year old even. The suicide rate was rather high for those who failed their big college entrance exams because they didn't even want to think of life as a failure and cramming even more for another year to try again. I really hope they are able to change things around.
lasagnaphil 7y ago
Ah, as a Korean who experienced all of this bullshit (in middle/high school), I have a few additional points I want to make: - Standardized test scores aren't either the culprit or the panacea for the privatization of education. No matter what the process of selecting students is, there will always be cram schools willing to exploit that process to the maximum degree. Korea in fact has another way to enter college without that single exam (called _susi_, it's basically your GPA + portfolio + cover letter), which is less well known than the default route (called _jungsi_). And guess what, there are a shit-ton of crams schools for that too. There are cram schools solely for entering International Math/Physics Olympiads, because they are one of the several ways to enter Medical School, which are the hardest type of colleges you can try in Korea. There are cram schools for art college examimations, cram schools for your high school GPA, cram schools for entering science/writing contests (so you can lengthen your portfolio), cram schools for just anything you can imagine related to college admissions. - It's becoming more and more of a lie in Korea that simply entering a good university will automatically land you a good job, especially in the non-STEM sectors. Humanities students in top universities are now scrambling to get good GPAs, TOEFL scores, and any activities that would lengthen their portfolio, simply because jobs are very scarce even for them. A lot of them are preparing for government administration jobs which would give them good job security. And guess what, those jobs are also determined by a single test, how tragic! Same goes for law schools, medical universities, etc... As a Korean, you'll almost never leave the perpetual requirement of nonsensical tests and competitions for quite some time even after high school, it's pretty harrowing.
- onceUponADime 7y ago
  So the solution for this dilema would be to take more applicants into a job first and then weed out by measurable quality/output ?
- TuringNYC 7y ago
  Firstly - I’m sorry to hear about this experience and don’t want to undermine the pain here. I’ll note that some of the schools I graduated from in the US (NYC) are moving from exams to a “holistic” system of entrance, and my feeling is that is even worse in many cases. In the holistic system: - you don’t know what the criteria is - friendships and contacts matter - you can’t study to fully strengthen your chances - you don’t get feedback on what you are doing wrong - in the extreme cases is very open to bias and corruption (eg many “holistic” systems actively filter out Asian candidates)
greendestiny_re 7y ago
This kind of pressure is literal torture but what I find the most tragic is how it still doesn't prepare the kids to be better workers. For me, no exam has in any way reflected the kind of freelancing work environment I am in right now. If I compare exams to work: - Clients who assign me a writing task don't expect me to know everything. I'm actually required to do research and reference other sources. If I tried writing a text without using the internet, I'd be very limited in what I can write and how. - I'm given plenty of time. If there's a rush task, the client will ask beforehand if that's OK with me and pay extra. I can write a text in 45 minutes but then the client pays extra. The clients acknowledge that I'm existing in the real world where I might want to have time off, go on a vacation or just have a family or health crisis. - I'll be given detailed instructions on how to succeed in my task because that's the most desirable outcome. Exams ignore the ultimate outcome or do the exact opposite and I've seen plenty of them intentionally provide vague instructions and questions to fail as many students as possible. I feel more free when doing a single 2,000-word SEO text and cramming in 10-15 instances of "how to fix damaged hard drive" or "best baby diapers" than these kids have felt in their entire school life. This is just tragic and will have enormous repercussions on South Korea's future. I wish I could somehow reach out and tell them that it's going to be OK and they should not stress out that much about bad grades. I had bad grades in high school because my family fell apart during that time and I was overwhelmed with emotions. No teacher asked me if I'm all right or how I'm feeling, they just blindly pushed on with the curriculum that ignores the fact kids are humans too. We'd never put a dog through this kind of stress and would hound the person who did, but for kids it's apparently perfectly fine. To all of you stressing out about grades, find someone capable of speaking with you like an adult. I did it and I feel those mature conversations and emotional support literally saved my life. This is what work is like for me and I wish everyone stressing out about their grades would know they can have it as well.

88 points by apsec112 7y ago

As the article notes, this is treating the symptom rather than the problem. When you have a system which dramatically favors graduates from top schools, entrance criteria solely based on single exams, and punishment for single exam failures for life (ie if you don't do well on exam 1 you are effectively booted from the prestigious track forever), of course everyone is going to cram relentlessly for exams. If you send people home from cram schools, students will simply be forced to study at home. I'm not sure what the solution is for this (other than to create more slots at good schools or more good schools) but curfews certainly will not work.

trophycase 7y ago
Maybe, but it might be a nice wake up call that there is a problem.
esotericn 7y ago
It's not like the system is fundamentally better in other countries. In Britain there's a colossal effect from landing a place at a few good schools / universities. We mainly handle that by setting low expectations for most of the populace (e.g. the class system) and gate it by cost.
- umvi 7y ago
  People always criticize America for having expensive universities but I always thought it was horribly depressing when my German friends told me that their entire future was staked on a single exam. Do poorly and not only can you not get into college but you'll be a sanitation worker for the rest of your life (or similar).
  - barry-cotter 7y ago
    This is bullshit. Most courses in most universities are open admission if you have an Abitur. If you have an Abitur but you want to to a course that’s in high demand and your grades are insufficient you can get in if you’re willing to wait. I met a girl who competed a three year Physiotherapy apprenticeship while waiting to get into Medicine. If you didn’t go to Gymnasium (university prep school) you can get an Abitur in one year after graduating Realschule or you can get a Bachelor’s from a Fachhochschule and then a Master’s from a university. Germany streams more aggressively than the US but the idea that there are no second chances is a joke.
    - arrrg 7y ago
      If you have Abitur is the thing here. You have to have that (yeah, Realschule plus FH works, too, but that’s not exactly the same and also a whole thing). To say nothing of the absolute bonkers aggressive tracking that’s happening early on. It’s not a single test and might not seem as dramatic because of that, but if you actually think about it, it’s horrific. I think this seeming less dramatic (because it’s not a single test but rather something that happens to kids just entering puberty, long before they will ever think about going to university) makes it seem all nice and fair, but actually it’s horrible.
      - quelltext 7y ago
        I have a few friends from Germany who started out in Hauptschule and later had to work hard to get their Abitur after the fact. It's possible, though really hard. They tell me there are options to move on from Hauptschule to Realschule, etc. if that's really what you want and have the drive. The problem is the environment. Everyone around you isn't going to college, they're all going to work in some factory or as a salesclerk, and you're a nerd if you try to advance. One other factor here is I think that it's usually the parents who decide your future early on. Yes, there's recommendations by your school, but AFAIK this is not definite and can be overridden within reason. However, if the parents never get the Abitur or have many friends who did, they'll be intimidated, even if your grades are perfect and you got the recommendation to go on the university track. So often they put you in the same school track they took since they know what to expect. It hinders social mobility. On the other hand not everyone wants to go to college, not everyone wants to study and rather get their hands dirty in a job that doesn't require a degree. Forcing those who don't to stay in school (if there's a single track) till the end with a lot of struggling towards the end (and then the stigma of not completing would be bad as well) maybe graduating with bad grades... that doesn't sound ideal either.
8bitsrule 7y ago
If these children only knew what they are losing to 'win', they could respond by failing exam 1. I can only begin to imagine the psychological future for SK. I'm already concerned for parents that would tolerate this hyper-rat-race.
knzhou 7y ago
Exams or not, there will be no fix as long as there is zero-sum competition for a scarce good. And in this case, there is necessarily scarcity because prestige is positional: "the top schools" will necessarily always be a small fraction of all schools. (Of course all of this also applies to western countries.)

Mirioron 7y ago

This reads like satire. Surely there are better ways to deal with the problem than using the police. The police probably also have better things to do. In fact, this reads like it's a parody of the US war on drugs. It's so misguided. The article is from 2011. Has the situation improved in South Korea? Because I can see that their results in PISA 2019 were still very good.

James_Henry 7y ago
What better way would there be than the police? This seems like just the job for them. In the US at least, it is the police's job to enforce curfew. The situation is, from what I understand, very much the same as it was a decade ago. An interesting article on the topic is here https://www.reuters.com/article/us-southkorea-education-drama-idUSKCN1PS01X https://www.reuters.com/article/us-southkorea-education-dram...
- Mirioron 7y ago
  A curfew like that doesn't make sense. I would consider this to be extreme government overreach. In a free society you are allowed to study as much as you want and you're allowed to teach as much as you want.
  - snazz 7y ago
    At some point it’s a child welfare problem, right? That’s certainly not outside what the police should be regulating. Of course, the underlying issue is societal and economic.
  - nisse72 7y ago
    They are free to study as much as they want. The curfew is on the business itself. As the quote in the third paragraph says: 'It's the hagwon that's in violation, not you.'
    - Hydraulix989 7y ago
      That sounds like something that is made up.

psychlops 7y ago

This is quite dated. Is there any evidence that this curfew is still in effect?

bitxbit 7y ago

We desperately need to move away from these education systems. They worked well when resources were limited and identifying gifted students took priority. The world is a much different place now and we should focus on individualized curriculum and mastery.

emodendroket 7y ago
Resources are still limited.
- thrwaway69 7y ago
  Give free birth control everywhere and stipend to poor couples including a free state sponsored education program for stopping them from becoming poor parents. Will save the state and possible parents much more in resources to spend. What a simple solution but of course, that won't happen because you need low tier workers in the society that the state and others can leech off from. Rich need their prostitutes, drivers, maids, low cost labor and employees. Society need numbers, labor which they can abuse for cleaning the filth and boosting themselves in a sacrificial ceremony. For example, UP state in india has a population density of 828 persons per km² What good reason do you think there is not in spending money to stop poor people from having kids? I don't get the ethical issue about it other than it being made up by people for patting their backs. Government can ban smoking, drugs, porn, video games, internet sites, alcohol, and many other things to keep you safe from "harming" yourself. Doctors can veto your opinion or voice if they think you are a danger to yourself. All research shows kids living in extreme poverty has a dire future, lot of bad health issues and will most likely remain in poverty. Why can't we ban or at least try to spend money to that cause? 3.6k kids die due to hunger/deficiency every day in india. What if they weren't born? Why have so many people that you need to resort to filtering for everything in life?
  - econcon 7y ago
    >What good reason do you think there is not in spending money to stop poor people from having kids? Dystopian world where people aren't allowed to have kids, just because they are poor? Much better is to make sure poors have enough money to raise their kids. Offer them government assistance.

shadowprofile77 7y ago

That this is so arbitrarily possible in a legal sense speaks very poorly of the South Korean government's notions about individual rights in the home.

detaro 7y ago
Regulating the opening time of businesses and inspecting business locations is infringing on individual rights in the home?

mattanimation 7y ago

This was bad when I was in Seoul from 2003-2005 and I couldn't believe how much school was thrown on to kids, like little 5 year old even. The suicide rate was rather high for those who failed their big college entrance exams because they didn't even want to think of life as a failure and cramming even more for another year to try again. I really hope they are able to change things around.

lasagnaphil 7y ago

Ah, as a Korean who experienced all of this bullshit (in middle/high school), I have a few additional points I want to make: - Standardized test scores aren't either the culprit or the panacea for the privatization of education. No matter what the process of selecting students is, there will always be cram schools willing to exploit that process to the maximum degree. Korea in fact has another way to enter college without that single exam (called _susi_, it's basically your GPA + portfolio + cover letter), which is less well known than the default route (called _jungsi_). And guess what, there are a shit-ton of crams schools for that too. There are cram schools solely for entering International Math/Physics Olympiads, because they are one of the several ways to enter Medical School, which are the hardest type of colleges you can try in Korea. There are cram schools for art college examimations, cram schools for your high school GPA, cram schools for entering science/writing contests (so you can lengthen your portfolio), cram schools for just anything you can imagine related to college admissions. - It's becoming more and more of a lie in Korea that simply entering a good university will automatically land you a good job, especially in the non-STEM sectors. Humanities students in top universities are now scrambling to get good GPAs, TOEFL scores, and any activities that would lengthen their portfolio, simply because jobs are very scarce even for them. A lot of them are preparing for government administration jobs which would give them good job security. And guess what, those jobs are also determined by a single test, how tragic! Same goes for law schools, medical universities, etc... As a Korean, you'll almost never leave the perpetual requirement of nonsensical tests and competitions for quite some time even after high school, it's pretty harrowing.

onceUponADime 7y ago
So the solution for this dilema would be to take more applicants into a job first and then weed out by measurable quality/output ?
TuringNYC 7y ago
Firstly - I’m sorry to hear about this experience and don’t want to undermine the pain here. I’ll note that some of the schools I graduated from in the US (NYC) are moving from exams to a “holistic” system of entrance, and my feeling is that is even worse in many cases. In the holistic system: - you don’t know what the criteria is - friendships and contacts matter - you can’t study to fully strengthen your chances - you don’t get feedback on what you are doing wrong - in the extreme cases is very open to bias and corruption (eg many “holistic” systems actively filter out Asian candidates)

greendestiny_re 7y ago

This kind of pressure is literal torture but what I find the most tragic is how it still doesn't prepare the kids to be better workers. For me, no exam has in any way reflected the kind of freelancing work environment I am in right now. If I compare exams to work: - Clients who assign me a writing task don't expect me to know everything. I'm actually required to do research and reference other sources. If I tried writing a text without using the internet, I'd be very limited in what I can write and how. - I'm given plenty of time. If there's a rush task, the client will ask beforehand if that's OK with me and pay extra. I can write a text in 45 minutes but then the client pays extra. The clients acknowledge that I'm existing in the real world where I might want to have time off, go on a vacation or just have a family or health crisis. - I'll be given detailed instructions on how to succeed in my task because that's the most desirable outcome. Exams ignore the ultimate outcome or do the exact opposite and I've seen plenty of them intentionally provide vague instructions and questions to fail as many students as possible. I feel more free when doing a single 2,000-word SEO text and cramming in 10-15 instances of "how to fix damaged hard drive" or "best baby diapers" than these kids have felt in their entire school life. This is just tragic and will have enormous repercussions on South Korea's future. I wish I could somehow reach out and tell them that it's going to be OK and they should not stress out that much about bad grades. I had bad grades in high school because my family fell apart during that time and I was overwhelmed with emotions. No teacher asked me if I'm all right or how I'm feeling, they just blindly pushed on with the curriculum that ignores the fact kids are humans too. We'd never put a dog through this kind of stress and would hound the person who did, but for kids it's apparently perfectly fine. To all of you stressing out about grades, find someone capable of speaking with you like an adult. I did it and I feel those mature conversations and emotional support literally saved my life. This is what work is like for me and I wish everyone stressing out about their grades would know they can have it as well.