Burning childhood in the Korean cram school

In an English class, Korean kindergarteners fidgeted restlessly. They are not learning the alphabet, but are starting early for a decisive milestone more than 10 years from now: the university entrance exam.

“Write a paragraph of 5-8 sentences, using 5 synonyms for the word big,” teacher Keri requested. The children began to do the exercises as requested.

The students in the class of Keri Schnabel, a 31-year-old American teacher, are part of a growing group of South Korean children pursuing private education from an early age. These programs almost always focus on improving English skills, an important language for future career paths.

For many years, Lee Kyong-min’s life revolved around taking her two daughters from school to tutoring centers and then home. Lee, a former advertising executive, and her husband, who works in finance, tried to send their children to the best possible schools.

7 days a week, she waits for her children until late at night in cafes filled with parents. Sometimes, she encounters young children having to do their homework and eat dinner at the cafe before rushing to the next shift.

Extra classes are now appearing all over Korea, meeting the needs of many parents who want their children to be able to get into the best universities.

When his daughter asked why he had to spend so much time studying, Lee told them that it was necessary because academic achievement meant opportunity and opportunity brought about a happy life. However, her belief in this point of view began to waver when her eldest daughter, then about 8 years old, asked “Mom, were you really bad at studying in the past?”.

“I realized that she saw that I was unhappy. I felt like I had just been hit in the head,” Ms. Lee said.

Now this mother asks herself what kind of vision of life and happiness she is painting for her children. This is also a question that many Korean parents face.

According to government data, 80% of Korean students are taking extra courses. Although the school-age population has declined over the past decades, this market will still grow to a record $20.3 billion in 2024.

Korean children take extra courses and test preparation increasingly early. In a district in Seoul, children as young as 4 years old took the entrance exam for English-speaking kindergartens. Some children participate in the medical school preparation program right from elementary school.

Even in a country that is accustomed to fierce competition for university admission like Korea, this situation still causes concern. The Korean Human Rights Commission said forcing preschoolers to undergo high-stakes exams is a violation of children’s rights. Lawmakers, who blame test prep centers for causing a mental health crisis among teenagers, vowed to intervene.

However, Lee does not think this reality is easy to change. She herself is also conflicted about bringing her children into the educational cycle. Part of her wants her children to have a rich education and not depend on college competition. But the other part wants them to be among the winners.

In 2013, she sent her daughters, then 4-5 years old, to attend English kindergarten. She also said they took many extra courses in Daechi, a wealthy neighborhood in Seoul’s Gangnam district. This is where about 1,200 such furnaces gather.

Lee grew up in Daechi and was no stranger to its reputation. Still, she was shocked by the endless cycle of exams that awaited her children.

The most important are the “proficiency tests” or entrance exams organized by tutoring centers (also known as hagwon) for children from 4 years old. Some tests are so competitive that parents have to send their children to study at another hagwon just to take the exam there.

“People often say that if you want your child to go to medical school, you need to let them ‘repeat’ the entire math program 6 times until the end of high school,” Ms. Lee said.

Anxiety still surrounds the Suneung University entrance exam, a “life and death” test whose scope and difficulty far exceed the standard school curriculum.

“Students today essentially have to shoulder two separate workloads: their school grades and their preparation for the Suneung exam,” said Gu Bon-chang, a former teacher and now policy director of the nonprofit World Without Worries about Shadow Education.

South Korea has one of the highest university enrollment rates in the world at 76%.

“In Korea there are no second chances,” commented Soo-yong Byun, professor at Pennsylvania State University. “It’s not just where you go to college, it’s also the first job you get after that. All of these things have a huge impact on your ability to get ahead as an adult.”

One teacher at a leading English training chain estimates his elementary school students spend at least 40 hours a week just taking extra classes. He said he was shocked when he graded a student’s recent essay, in which the 6-year-old wrote about his fear that the whole family would be unhappy if he did not achieve excellent academic results.

Kim Hye-jin, 37 years old, also sent her children to private English classes in the Daechi area since they were young. “They say that today’s children don’t meet their friends at the playground anymore but at the furnace,” Kim said. “It’s inevitable. As a parent, I can only try to make the best decisions possible.”

Mrs. Kim and many other parents worry that their children will be exhausted. But they also fear their children will fall behind their peers, or be excluded from a system that promises elite educations and successful lives.

Peter Na, a psychiatrist at Yale University, expressed concern about the increase in depressive symptoms in Korean children under 10 years old. “Depression in children under 10 years old is not common. I think it is related to academic pressures,” he said.

Seo Dong-ju, a 41-year-old doctor in Seoul, does not believe that the path of fiercely competitive exam preparation is the right choice for boys. Seo is concerned about the long-term physical, psychological and social effects of overstudying on young children.

“I think this culture needs to change fundamentally,” he said.

Lee, now a psychologist, also chose a different path for his children. In 2024, she and her husband decided to let their child stop attending harshly competitive tutoring centers in Korea and enroll in a private boarding school in the US. Now, her daughters are thriving at their new school.

“Just study math at Daechi to the 8th grade level and then go to America and see. People will call you a genius,” she said.