More than half a million South Korean students in their final year of high school recently took the university entrance examination. Many people consider success on this test the first step toward a good life. But South Korean students say they feel stressed from the pressure.
Seventeen-year-old student Lee Jee-woo is not ready yet to take the test. But he has a strong opinion about it. He says, “This test can determine the rest of your life.”
South Korean high school students spend years studying for the university entrance examination. People say good scores guarantee entrance to a top university and the possibility of a high-paying job. Some say good test results even improve chances for a good marriage in the future.
Jasper Kim is a professor at Seoul’s Ewha Women’s University. “I think you’ll see similar things in China and to a lesser degree in Japan. It became the end all, be all, the standardized test, what you got on it. What it created was a system of teaching to the test. So everyone was prepared, in terms of, getting to the right answer ... and not knowing why that is the right answer.” Professor Kim says this system of learning by memorization produces a lot of stressed students. A recent government study found that South Korean children are the least happy compared to children in 29 other developed countries. Many South Koreans blame educational pressure for this unhappiness.
South Korean President Park Geun-hye has promised to reform her country’s educational system. She urges the system to increase creative thinking and reduce student tension. But Jasper Kim does not feel sure that reforms by the top government alone will solve the problem. He says, “The bureaucrats, they can say all they want. But it really starts at home.”
Still, getting South Korean parents to ease the pressure on their children might not be so easy. Shin Jeong-yeon says she would like not to put so much pressure on her daughter. But, she says there is a lot of competition, so it is impossible for parents not to do so.
本时文内容由奇速英语国际教育研究院原创编写，禁止复制和任何商业用途，版权所有，侵权必究！
13980503458
13980503458
admin@qisuen.cn
