Eric.ed.gov – Favourable Teaching Approaches in the South Korean Secondary Classroom

Korean education certainly has its strong points as its fifteen year olds produce outstanding results in the area of mathematics and are the world’s most literate bunch. However, South Korean high schools are insufficiently preparing students for an often learner centered and creative system of education that often necessitates students to be self-motivated, at universities in and out of Korea. Nevertheless, Koreans often make the plea that Korean education is fine and sound at all levels. In essence, they argue that their education is world class and that their high schools are superb while citing PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) 2006 results to support their case. On the other hand, I would state exactly the opposite, for reasons which I have based on both experience and research. As it stands, the Korean secondary system of education is highly successful in preparing students for teacher centered education such as that often used to teach math since the transfer of information is mostly one way, from teacher to student. However, this does not hold true for classroom environments where students are expected to take on self reliant roles wherein, for the most part, active and creative personalities seem to lead to success. (Contains 1 figure and 1 table.)