Primary And Secondary Education example essay topic

The educational institution in South Korea and America deal with similar problems, but in different cultural milieu. Many of them have done work in comparative fields in precise sciences (like math), humanities, and the professions. I have found that comparative studies can provide exceedingly interesting insights. But I have never found that broad solutions are transferable from one culture to another. Therefore, I caution that the prospect of wholesale adoption of any particular system of organization or means towards desirable ends is illusory. Many insights can be learned from understanding these systems.

I cannot imagine it would be profitable, however, to contemplate installation of these systems wholesale in places other than where they evolved. It is useful to see how todays organization of higher education in South Korea and the United States has intertwined roots. Looking at origins from the American perspective much is owed to both South Korea and China. From China (starting with traditional martial arts schools) came the conception of a close relationship between teachers and students concerning defined subject matter and a preoccupation with developing a cultured, educated, and worthy graduate. From South Korea came a different conception, less focused on imparting a body of knowledge by faculty to student, but based rather on the idea of a functional unity between teaching and research, with learning occurring as a by-product of collaborative research, which produced new knowledge in the quest for both theory and objective truth. Thus subject, rather than the personal development of the student, received primary attention.

In South Korea the expansion of the secondary school system after World War II has led to an awkward structural and functional muddle. The transformation of the system into places of mass secondary education with about four times more students now than in the early sixties, has jeopardized the traditional balance between the tasks of academic inquiry and advanced training of students. The old ideal of a unity of research and teaching is still part of the official value frame of reference at schools and higher educational institutions. But in recent decades frictions occurred in this system because of an increasing discrepancy between the traditional research orientation of school teachers and their actual involvement in practical or even voluntary training of large numbers.

Thus, despite several decades of reform discussions, this model is still characterized by antagonistic structural features: on the one hand, the students inability to choose freely subject, and their time of examination; on the other, the freedom to study whatever they like (both sanctioned by the Humboldt ian principle of the freedom of teaching and learning). Other significant aspects have been the constitutionally guaranteed open access to all schools for anybody with a secondary degree; the bureaucratic and state control of all curricular and organizational matters, including the civil service status of the teachers; the overloading of programs and courses according to individual research interests of the mentors; and finally, the widely criticized length of studies in most subject areas. (Kae barwon 47) South Korea provides 11 years of free schooling. Education is the responsibility of the Federal Government, and 15, 4% of the annual National Budget is allocated for education. The national education system encompasses education beginning from pre-school to higher education. (Kim 25) Primary and secondary education is free but not compulsory.

Excellence has been achieved through a carefully designed system that allows flexibility and room for individual approaches. This is really apparent at the pre-school and again at tertiary level. However primary and secondary education is highly structured, with a curriculum which enables the sound acquisition of fundamental knowledge and skills. The admission age to the first year of primary education is six. Most schools in the country are government or government-aided schools. The school year starts in January and ends in November.

Students sit for common exams at the end off primary, lower secondary, upper secondary and sixth form levels. The primary level covers a period of between five to seven years, the lower secondary three years, followed by two years at the upper secondary and another two years at the post secondary level. Tertiary education in both the academic and professional fields id provided by universities colleges and other public and private institutions of higher education..