US: It ’s Time to Stress Public Education

[Harold Schiffman]

Student Corner] It's Time to Stress Public Education



Gari Hahm
By Gari Hahm

A growing number of people are demanding the strengthening of public
education to be placed on top of the national policy agenda in the
next government.Strong public schools will not only encourage students
to depend less on private tutoring programs to get college admissions,
but will also help parents spend less on their children's private
education. As the presidential election is just around the corner,
presidential candidates have presented their visions for a strong
public education. Their visions are focused on enhancing the quality
and competitiveness of education.

As a high school student, I am not very knowledgeable of the
educational policies and have no ability to objectively evaluate the
education policies proposed by the candidates. However, I would like
to sincerely ask the presidential nominees to develop a world-renowned
educational system so that students can learn and excel to be the best
we can be. Presidential hopefuls need to implement an educational
system, which should be based on genuine educational reforms and not
on temporary and superficial revisions. So many times the people have
experienced politicians introducing a temporary fix to our educational
problem, but this should not be repeated in the presidential election
in December.

The next president should also build an educational environment where
students can cultivate and develop their abilities at school without
having to go abroad to study at an early age or depend on private
schools such as ``hagwon.''

The president should create an educational environment and system in
which students with diverse talents and abilities will have more
choices on how we can enter university.

My policy suggestion is based on my personal background, which allowed
me to go through the trials and errors of the Korean education system
after I came to Korea to study.

I was born and educated in the United States until my first year in
middle school and decided to come to Korea to attend secondary
education.

Because Korea's educational situation forces many students to go
abroad for early education because they are not satisfied with the
Korean education system, many people were opposed to my reverse
movement to Korea.

However, I believed that I needed to learn about my own country's
language and the culture before I could achieve my dream of becoming a
global leader.

Nevertheless, not surprisingly, as a middle school student in Korea, I
had to go through the most difficult and troubled time of my life and
muddle through the bitterness of adaptation.

Because it was not easy for me to adapt to the new environment in
Korea, there were several occasions when my school's administrators
and teachers called up my parents advising them to send me back to the
U.S.

Even I came to a point of regretting about my decision to come to
Korea and I actually asked my parents to send me back there.

After such a difficult phase, I am proud to be a high school freshman in Korea.

However, like many other high school students in Korea I am now
struggling with the ``death triangle,'' because high school students
must fully meet the requirements of the national scholastic
achievement entrance exam, essay exam, and school grades to enter
university.

As I will not be able to enter a university if I fail to satisfy any
of these requirements, I have no choice but to depend on ``hagwon,''
the private education institutes outside of school.

The Korean educational system, which prioritizes private education
more than public education, and which focuses more on the merits of
the entrance examination than on giving more importance to
humanities-oriented learning is very disappointing and is not what I
imagined.

I am very sorry to see my parents struggling with their finances
because of the increasing burden of private education just to help me
prepare for the death triangle.

Because of Korea's education problem, many of our elementary, middle
and high school students are going abroad to study.

Studying abroad at an early age can provide certain advantages as it
is easy to understand and learn a foreign language, obtain
international experience, and broaden one's perspective.

However, it can cause serious social problems as it can break up families.

When one of my friends had to go abroad for his study, his family was
separated from each other and ended up being a ``wild goose family.''

And what's even sadder is that his parents had to reduce the size of
their apartment to pay for the expense of him studying abroad.

Even in my view as a high school student with a minimal knowledge of
social issues, this is a very serious educational and social problem
in Korea.

Gari.hahm at gmail.com

Gari Hahm is a first year student of Myungji Foreign Language High
School, Seoul, Korea.



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