Money Determines Academic Grades

 written by 20309 Kim Hayun

The economic status of parents significantly influences the children’s learning outcomes. The root of educational inequality is dependent on private education.

South Korean households pay about 42% of their income on private education for their children, compared with the 22% average among other OECD countries.

Nearly 68% of students attend hagwons, private educational institutes.

The opportunity to attend hagwon is influenced by household income because individuals need to pay hagwon to attend. Hagwon tuition could be burdensome for low-income households.

According to Statistics Korea, parents who have a low 20% income spend 5,925 won monthly in education costs. In contrast, the parents who have the top 20% income spend 242,600 won, which is about 27 times higher than the low 20%.

The problem is that attending hagwons significantly impacts student achievement. The students who receive more private education have an advantage in competitive exams, which determine the university they can attend.

Children’s future socio-economic achievement should not be determined by their parents’ income.

The government needs to make a more substantial effort to relieve educational inequality.

The government should support public education and provide opportunities to get additional education in public schools by educating teachers regularly and reinforcing after-school activities.

The fundamental problem is that the college admission system is too dependent on standardized tests.

Private education is effective since the college entrance exam is a standardized test that contains repetition and memorization, which are the main things done in hagwons. Therefore, hagwons can help students get good grades on their tests.

Also, standardized tests only consider the ranking of students, which is to make students better than others.

Without fundamental innovation in the evaluation systems, the problem of private education will not be resolved. When evaluating students, creativity, aptitude, various talents and skills should be considered. Evaluating systems should focus on how individuals develop and not how much better than others.