Children Are Trapped—Tear Down the Walls of Educational Power

The backwardness of our education system is serious. Not only is the competitiveness of elementary, secondary, and higher education declining, but the gap with advanced countries is also widening. Dissatisfaction is high among education consumers—students and parents alike—and there is also serious dissatisfaction among employers who need to hire educated talent. The education authorities enjoy power behind a wall of bureaucracy, while educators responsible for teaching remain silent in the face of consumer demands. Everyone is deeply dissatisfied and, in that sense, a victim.

Because the education system is such a mess, education consumers are being pressured to become education experts themselves. Parents with children are now in a situation where they must become experts capable of identifying and responding even to the flaws in the education system. In the past, it was enough to send children to private tutoring, but now access to information has become crucial. Looking at the way Cho Kuk, a professor at Seoul National University Law School, managed his children’s credentials, it goes far beyond what most people could imagine. It is a level that ordinary people can hardly even imitate. As a result, social distrust and discontent have grown. Illegal acts should of course be punished, but the desire to see one’s children succeed is a natural instinct shared by everyone. As captured in the phrase “the information power of Gangnam moms,” the phenomenon of obsessive credential management for children has already become widespread among the intellectual class, high-income class, and highly educated class that have emerged as the leading forces in our society. As a result, there are even arguments for reducing the weight of rolling admissions and increasing the weight of regular admissions.

Parents’ zeal for their children’s education burns hot. Students’ desire to succeed through education is also very strong. Because such enthusiasm can become positive energy that drives not only individual success but also social prosperity, educational competitiveness is important. The problem is the backwardness of an education system that shifts competitive pressure onto education consumers instead of having educational institutions compete and strive to solve problems themselves. As the government-led education system has lost competitiveness due to uniformity and bureaucracy, parents are searching for loopholes in education and trying to look after their own children first. It is not desirable for children’s education to be determined by their parents’ competitiveness.

The education sector is a fortress that has long resisted reform. Students sleep at school, and schools merely pretend to teach. Universities are not interested in properly educating the students they admit and sending them out well prepared, while the education authorities are content simply to control schools. Even when the groans of those trapped behind school walls can be heard, no one can tear down those walls and the power behind them. Unions driven by ideology, the belief that education is somehow special, self-serving appeals to a so-called “logic of education,” and education bureaucrats’ enjoyment of privilege are infringing on the sovereignty of the people and of education consumers. Now education, too, must change in a way that serves the people and education consumers.

Education is something everyone needs throughout life. Opportunities should be open so that anyone who needs education can receive it at any time. Educational institutions must have the flexibility to provide what is needed at any time, whether in the workplace or in the realities of daily life.

Educational institutions must not try to reign as special entities. Like ordinary businesses, they should be subject to consumer choice. Just as popular sovereignty must be respected, consumers’ right to choose must be absolutely respected. Students’ right to choose schools and schools’ right to choose students must both be respected. The education authorities must not attempt to ration education, nor should they control its content.

To raise educational competitiveness, the first step is to remove the interference and control of the education authorities. Educational institutions must be free to select and teach students if they are to produce the talent society needs. Educational competitiveness cannot be strengthened if institutions are left to settle comfortably into vested interests and enjoy privileges under the shadow of regulation.

The formalism of an education system in which admission effectively guarantees graduation must also now be resolved. Schools themselves must demonstrate both results in producing the talent society needs and a sense of social responsibility. They must show greater flexibility and managerial capacity to actively accept consumer demands so that the gap with American educational institutions leading the global education market can be narrowed.

As long as the education field remains trapped in closed-mindedness and rigidity that ignore society’s demands, education consumers will not escape the hell of entrance exams. To reduce competition for admission and competition over credentials, competition among schools must be increased. Only when schools are allowed to compete freely can their competitiveness be strengthened. In such schools, students can fully dream about the future while developing their character and intellect.

Educational institutions themselves must work to strengthen their competitiveness. Institutional support is needed for this. Before it is too late, education reform aimed at enhancing educational competitiveness must begin.

Sung-no Choi, President of the Center for Free Enterprise (CFE)

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Original title: 아이들이 갇혀있다, 교육권력의 담장을 허물라

Author: Sung-no Choi

Date: 2022-05-16

Source: https://www.cfe.org/bbs/bbsDetail.php?cid=press&idx=24765