Lets make them study to death!! Only send them home to sleep! cheerfully scream the billboards advertising after-school classes. In the midst of much chatter about Arvind Kejriwal, worsening Sino-Japanese relations and plummeting temperatures, everyone seems to be missing the real momentous developments in the global economythe fantabulous rise and even more fabulous riches of the South Korean tutoring industry. The murky, fascinating, loathed but addictive world of private tuition in South Korea is openly acknowledged as one of the reasons behind the nations superior performance in the Programme for International Student Assessment. (For the inquisitive sort, an introduction and key findings of PISA 2012 may be accessed at http://www.oecd.org/pisa/keyfindings/pisa-2012-results.htm). However, a glimpse of the person behind the grades may reveal a different story -the percentage of students in Korea who reported feeling happy at school was 60 percent, one of the lowest in comparison to other nations like Indonesia or even Peru.
This $17 billion industry that is dominated by young professionals of pop-star-esque appearance and pay packages as high as $4 million per annum and a generation of students being taught standard time-buying phrases for English oral exams that can be spewed out while they think of an appropriate answer, reflects a tectonic shift in pedagogy that stresses memorization over creativity. Not surprisingly, the days are gruelling for all, 12 hour lectures to be recorded for online streaming and secretive after-school classes named shadow schools that run late into the night, forcing police authorities to patrol and shut down those that operate beyond curfew hours. The allure behind these profit-churning institutions that offer customized review and feedback on academic performance is the assurance of securing admission to top-tier universities in the country.
While Indians are not altogether unfamiliar with the rapid expansion of the private tuition industry valued at $6.5billion domestically, the degree of market penetration and corporatization of education being witnessed in South Korea is incomparable some tutoring firms trade on the stock exchange now, with investments flowing in from Goldman Sachs and A.I.G.
What worries policymakers and educational theorists, are the consequences of such mass-driven supplemental education. While competition and the profit motive has compelled firms to experiment with teaching methods for faster learning, initiate performance-based remuneration for professors and empower students with ample choice in deciding which classes to enrol for, the clear downside is the inevitable rise in inequality and a further decline in standards for public schools that are unable to retain quality teaching talent. But the counter argument any defender of the market mechanism is quick to make is that it is precisely this decline in public schools infrastructure and teaching motivation that threatens to widen the gap in the performance of students in public and private schools and that the dynamic and flexible tuition industry is here to fill the demand gap in a cost-effective manner.
However, a number of problems need to be resolved to prevent the education system from morphing into an assembly-line model. The solution is not of a draconian nature involving a bureaucratic clamp-down that my haranguing may suggest, but is a simple, oft-repeated albeit effective suggestion. There is an urgent need to reconsider the manner in which we evaluate student learning and determine admissions to educational institutions and for firms to reassess their hiring practices so that academic records are not mistaken with the ability to lead, work in teams or develop creative solutions. As long as academic performance is seen as the sole means to an end, i.e. a successful start to a well-paid career, rational agents like parents and students will flock toward those who help them maximize these objective standards. Apprenticeships that offer students opportunities to test their strengths and for employers to gain a more nuanced insight into students practical abilities need to become the norm. A curriculum and study materials that are both engaging and self-explanatory would help stem the tide of private tuition. While nobody will argue against hard-work and other Confucian principles that the school-after-school system may embody, ingenuity is still an asset that cannot be manufactured.
Sonali Chowdhry is an undergraduate student of Economics at Miranda House, University of Delhi. She has a keen interest in development theory, emerging market economies and current affairs. Her favourite people in the world are Heston Blumenthal and Lemony Snicket and can be reached at sonali.chowdhry@gmail.com.