South Korea on Monday unveiled plans to extend hours for primary schools' extracurricular classes and make the classes available at all schools to make commuting parents' life routines more logistically and financially sustainable. The government has allocated a budget of 1.17 trillion won ($879 million) for this year, more than double the amount earmarked for last year, to allow any first grader to registe...
This is frustratingly light on details of what exactly the kids will be doing for the 7 hours after regular classes end. The best we get is this one paragraph:
Before the public debate, Yoon attended a K-pop dance class and an abacus math class – part of Neulbom School programs provided at the elementary school Hanam, one of 459 institutions that applied for the state’s pilot project since last year.
So it’s still a little unclear how much these fit the definition I would provide for extracurriculars. When I was in school, extracurriculars were fun—various music bands and sporting clubs probably made up the majority of options, with various other miscellaneous options also available. A K-Pop dance class definitely fits in with that. Abacus maths? Uhh, maybe? I know I never learnt that in school and I don’t think it’s an especially useful skill. So it could be a thing people are doing because they enjoy it. But it could also be an excuse for getting extra conventional education.
What you’ve got to measure this against is the pre-existing prevalence of hagwon. Hagwon is essentially privately run extra schooling, designed entirely to provide kids with more regular school than what regular school provides. Nearly every child in Korea goes to hagwon. Heck, Korean students outside of Korea overwhelmingly attend, if there’s a strong enough Korean expat community to support it.
If schools are providing an alternative activity in the evening for students which is event a little bit lighter on the educational content and heavier on fun, and offering it to parents at a lower cost than private hagwon, I see this as a win. Not nearly as much of a win as parents finishing work at a reasonable hour and being able to spend it doing things with their child themselves, but a modest improvement on Korea’s status quo.
For context, I spent some of my childhood years living as an expat in Korea, and then my teenage years as an expat in a different country at a school where I’d guess about 20% of students were Korean. I’ve seen a lot of this firsthand.
This is frustratingly light on details of what exactly the kids will be doing for the 7 hours after regular classes end. The best we get is this one paragraph:
So it’s still a little unclear how much these fit the definition I would provide for extracurriculars. When I was in school, extracurriculars were fun—various music bands and sporting clubs probably made up the majority of options, with various other miscellaneous options also available. A K-Pop dance class definitely fits in with that. Abacus maths? Uhh, maybe? I know I never learnt that in school and I don’t think it’s an especially useful skill. So it could be a thing people are doing because they enjoy it. But it could also be an excuse for getting extra conventional education.
What you’ve got to measure this against is the pre-existing prevalence of hagwon. Hagwon is essentially privately run extra schooling, designed entirely to provide kids with more regular school than what regular school provides. Nearly every child in Korea goes to hagwon. Heck, Korean students outside of Korea overwhelmingly attend, if there’s a strong enough Korean expat community to support it.
If schools are providing an alternative activity in the evening for students which is event a little bit lighter on the educational content and heavier on fun, and offering it to parents at a lower cost than private hagwon, I see this as a win. Not nearly as much of a win as parents finishing work at a reasonable hour and being able to spend it doing things with their child themselves, but a modest improvement on Korea’s status quo.
For context, I spent some of my childhood years living as an expat in Korea, and then my teenage years as an expat in a different country at a school where I’d guess about 20% of students were Korean. I’ve seen a lot of this firsthand.
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