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South Korea Primary and Secondary Schools
In the late 1980s, primary schools were coeducational,
although coeducation was quite rare at the middle-school and
high-school levels. Enrollment figures for 1987 on the primaryschool level were 4,771,722 pupils in 6,531 schools, with 130,142
teachers. A decline from the 1980 figure of 5,658,002 pupils was
caused by population trends. Some 54 percent of primary school
teachers were male.
In 1987 there were approximately 4,895,354 students enrolled
in middle schools and high schools, with approximately 150,873
teachers. About 69 percent of these teachers were male. The
secondary-school enrollment figure also reflected changing
population trends--there were 3,959,975 students in secondary
schools in 1979. Given the importance of entry into higher
education, the majority of students attended general or academic
high schools in 1987: 1,397,359 students, or 60 percent of the
total, attended general or academic high schools, as compared
with 840,265 students in vocational secondary schools. Vocational
schools specialized in a number of fields: primarily agriculture,
fishery, commerce, trades, merchant marine, engineering, and the
arts.
Enrollment in kindergartens or preschools expanded
impressively during the 1980s. In 1980 there were 66,433 children
attending 901 kindergartens or preschools. By 1987 there were
397,020 children in 7,792 institutions. The number of
kindergarten and preschool teachers rose from 3,339 to 11,920
during the same period. The overwhelming majority of these
teachers--approximately 92 percent--were women. This growth was
attributable to several factors: Ministry of Education
encouragement of preschool education, the greater number of women
entering the work force, growth in the number of nuclear families
where a grandparent was often unavailable to take care of
children, and the feeling that kindergarten might give children
an "edge" in later educational competition. Kindergartens often
paid homage to the expectations of parents with impressive
graduation ceremonies, complete with diplomas, academic caps, and
gowns.
Competitive entrance examinations at the middle-school level
were abolished in 1968. Although as of the late 1980s, students
still had to pass noncompetitive qualifying examinations, they
were assigned to secondary institutions by lottery, or else by
location within the boundary of the school district. Secondary
schools, formerly ranked according to the quality of their
students, have been equalized, with a portion of good, mediocre,
and poor students being assigned to each one. The reform,
however, did not equalize secondary schools completely. In Seoul,
students who performed well in qualifying examinations were
allowed to attend better quality schools in a "common" district,
while other students attended schools in one of five geographical
districts. The reforms applied equally to public and private
schools whose enrollments were strictly controlled by the
Ministry of Education.
Although primary- and secondary-school teachers traditionally
enjoyed high status, they often were overworked and underpaid
during the late 1980s. Salaries were less than those for many
other white-collar professions and even some blue-collar jobs.
High school teachers, particularly those in the cities, however,
received sizable gifts from parents seeking attention for their
children, but teaching hours were long and classes crowded (the
average class contained around fifty to sixty students).
In May 1989, teachers established an independent union, the
National Teachers Union (NTU--Chon'gyojo). Their aims included
improving working conditions and reforming a school system that
they regarded as overly controlled by the Ministry of Education.
Although the government promised large increases in allocations
for teachers' salaries and facilities, it refused to give the
union legal status. Because teachers were civil servants, the
government claimed they did not have the right to strike and,
even if they did have the right to strike, unionization would
undermine the status of teachers as "role models" for young
Koreans. The government also accused the union of spreading
subversive, leftist propaganda that was sympathetic to the
communist regime in North Korea.
According to a report in the Asian Wall Street
Journal, the union claimed support from 82 percent of all
teachers. The controversy was viewed as representing a major
crisis for South Korean education because a large number of
teachers (1,500 by November 1989) had been dismissed, violence
among union supporters, opponents, and police had occurred at
several locations, and class disruptions had caused anxieties for
families of students preparing for the college entrance
examinations. The union's challenge to the Ministry of
Education's control of the system and the charges of subversion
had made compromise seem a very remote possibility at the start
of 1990.
Data as of June 1990
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