In all my weekly sharing of systemic injustices cases, what I want to discuss further is the case of unequal distribution of educational resources in Korea. I saw a documentary film called 《공부의 배신》,which means betrayal of learning. I believe that this title can already reflect some social status quo, because learning can no longer help some people to improve their class. Because your efforts have failed to some extent, in Korea. This documentary, which includes three episodes, mainly records the pressure of four students facing the entrance examination. Among the four students, there is a junior high school student, a senior high school student and two college students. All four students are faced with important life choices. Two students in junior high school are about to take entrance exams, while two students in university are under pressure to find jobs. In South Korea’s education system, exam scores only account for 30% of the final scores, which means that 70% of the scores are concentrated on school activities, quizzes and GPA. Normally, this scoring method can better reflect the overall quality of students. Students can adjust their learning status through their academic achievements in different periods. But the documentary showed me the despair behind this seemingly fair way. Students from wealthy families always have better grades and various activities background than ordinary students, but this is not because ordinary students don’t work hard enough. On the one hand, the top educational resources in Korea are concentrated in private schools. This means that children from rich families have a higher starting point than others. On the other hand, wealthy families can provide them with better internship opportunities. This kind of experience can be written in the background of students’ activities to improve the richness of activities for students. But more importantly, the children of rich families will form their own circle of friends. This invisible class was formed even before entering the university. The junior high school student in the documentary worked hard to get into private high schools, because 80% of the students in famous universities came from private high schools. The two college students also proved the importance of private high schools with their own experiences. In college life, the circle of friends between private high schools and ordinary high schools is different. What impressed me most was that there was a uniform festival in Korean universities. Students in private high schools will wear their high school uniforms to prove that they are from private high schools. When students from public high schools enter the society, the situation is even worse. There is no doubt that students in elite universities always occupy management positions. I think this situation is normal, because students in elite universities have made more efforts than students in ordinary universities. But the problem is that 80% of these students are from private high schools, and nepotism has become an obstacle for some graduates. If you are not from a private high school, you may not be able to get help from seniors. This way leads to the unfair distribution of social resources. In a word, I don’t think this documentary only records the differences between the poor and the rich. I see that social resources are completely controlled by the upper class, and even efforts can’t fill the gap. This is systematic injustice.
The following links are some clips of this documentary：
The following link is a report analyzing Korean education:
Hello.
I am Korean myself and I never knew how rich a family was a factor to be in a elite university or to have a great job. It is crazy that wealthy families have the ability to have a “head start” for success by sending their children to private schools. Poorer families simply have to send their children public schools with lower resources than private schools. It is not fair that how wealthy you are determines how much help you will get in school.
My parents are from South Korea and they have never told me about these “uniform festivals” in college. Maybe they haven’t been in one. Uniform festivals feel segregating. Not only do students in private uniforms show they are from private schools, they also implicitly show that their families are rich. Hopefully change can come where money can’t be a factor to getting into a great college or job.