The past 3 years of my life have been split living between Canada, China, Korea and Japan. In China, I taught at a university. In Korea and Japan I taught at a hagwon and juku respectively. Both are the country's names for "cram school".
Today I read an article about a new elite private school, for junior high/high school students, opening in Japan. It is meant for the cultivation of future leaders. The school, Kaiyo Academy, is apparently fashioned after Britain's Eton, but the strictly regimented schedule makes one wonder what the students are going to gain, aside from a penchant for punctuality. Classes are naturally scheduled, but so are free time, reading materials, phone calls and the like. Video games, comic books and bicycles are prohibited. I was confused as to exactly why bicycles weren't allowed but I'm not a school official. Perhaps riding a bike fosters bad behaviour. Kaiyo Academy is meant as an expensive alternative to both public and cram schools. Now the two are blended nicely together for the ultimate in time-crunching, educational achievement. The cost to send a child there is 3 million yen per year. That's around 30,000 CDN.
For those of you unfamiliar with the cram school system, it is an after school school. Kind of like tutoring centers in Canada except they can be much more rigid. In Korea I taught at an English hagwon, that specialized in students that had previously lived in an English speaking country for a minimum of one year. So, I was spoiled as an English teacher since almost all my students could easily converse with me and could read and write English to boot. My English juku in Japan didn't boast the same standards but had the same philosophy. Which was: Teach the kids as much English as possible in the time allowed.
Public schools, in both Korea and Japan, end around 3pm, sometimes earlier for the lower grades. Afterwards, it is common for many children to be bundled off, either by bus, car or bicycle to a cram school. Be it for English, math, social studies or the like. It's also common for students to stay at one or other cram school virtually ALL evening. Many of my students were frequently late to class because they had to come running for another school. Often they also looked bone-tired but would try to stay awake and alert for class.
The reason for cram schools is the overwhelming pressure and competition that surrounds getting into a good university. All families want to be able to brag that their child attends or attended (either tense is fine) the greatest university in the country. The top universities in Korea and Japan respectively, are Seoul and Tokyo. For my father's generation, if you went to Seoul University you were made for life. I assume the situation would've been similar for Tokyo. Entrance examinations for universities are cut-throat operations. If you failed, you didn't get in and had to wait another year before trying again. Then there was the whole dishonoring and shaming your family thing. Failure is not acceptable in any form. Failing means you don't respect all your family has done for you nor do you respect yourself. You didn't try hard enough. Suicide rates among students usually rise during entrance examination season. Thus, in order to lower the chance of failure, students are sent to cram schools.
I'm just glad that I was brought up in a country where the education system is a little more lax. I can't imagine spending every waking moment of my teenage years studying.
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