Country Case Study: South Korea

Interview Report
Erica Valenstein
EDTC 645 Summer 2015

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Erica Valenstein Interview Report

Introduction:
Since 1900, Korea has seen much turmoil and change in their education system. During
the early 1900's, the Japanese had control of Korea, which meant that they also had control of the
education system, as well. Only Japanese individuals could teach and learn. When they left
Korea, "78% of the Korean population was illiterate" (NCEE, 2015). Despite this, Korea began
to establish an education system, but due to the war between North & South Korea in the 1950's,
much of this system was "devastated". Beginning in the 1960s, South Korea began to rebuild
the education system yet again. "From these inauspicious beginnings only a few decades ago,
South Korea now fields one of the most highly educated and skilled workforces in the world"
(NCEE, 2015). The purpose of this report is to examine how South Korea, a country so young,
is able to integrate technology into its education system in order to be so highly ranked in the
world.

Biographies of Interviewees:
Kate Stephens
Kate Stephens is an account supervisor in Widmeyer Communications Pre-K through 12
education practice. Wedmeyer Communications is a Public Relations Agency that works with
understanding global policies. I was referred to Ms. Stephens through another interview
candidate by the name of Brenden Williams-Keif. Brenden Williams-Keif is the Director of
Communications for NCEE (National Center on Education and the Economy). NCEE is a client
of Wedmeyer Communications, so when Mr. Williams-Keif was out of town, he referred me to
Ms. Stephens.

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I contacted NCEE because one of the main goals of this organization is to research the
worlds best education systems in order to use trends in data to figure out and recommend the
best ways to educate around the world. I figured this would be a great organization to gain more
information from.
Dr. Ju Hur
Dr. Ju Hur is a Research Fellow and the Director of International Relations for KEDI
(Korean Education of Development Institute). I contacted Dr. Hur in order to gain information
from someone who works directly in the country with the education policy. KEDI works directly
with the national Korean government in order to guide educational policy research and planning.
Due to the fact that the Korean Ministry of Education trusts KEDI, I figured that this would be a
great organization to contact.
Ji Young
Ji Young was referred to me by a classmate. She is a personal contact of this classmate
and was more than willing to help out. Ms. Young works as a tenth grade English Conversation
teacher in the Korean Public School system. I was excited to interview Ms. Young because she
is on the front lines of the education policy. I was curious to hear about her viewpoint and how it
possibly differed from the interviewees who worked mostly with the research.

Interview Questions:

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1. It is clear from my research that teacher training in the areas of education is held to
high importance in South Korea. Do you know what percentage of the education
budget is allocated for this purpose?
o Rationale:

In many of the articles I read about the South Korean education policy,
teacher training or professional development was mentioned over and over
again and held with high importance. In one article, it stated so clearly
that the contribution to the professional development of teachers was
placed great importance in South Korea (Gokkaya & Levent, 2014).

2. What are the most common technologies that teachers are trained on?
o Rationale:

Building off of the previous question, much of the professional

development that teachers seemed to receive was on different
technologies, depending on the subject the specific teacher taught. Many
of the educational policies seemed to require more and more subjects to
use technology within their teaching. Gokkaya and Levent discuss a
qualitative rise in education within the country due to the effective teacher
training. Gokkaya and Levent state that this rise is linked with research
which are made to ensure that teachers used technology effectively in
education (Gokkaya & Levent, 2014). Due to the fact that many of the
authors I read about simply referred to the generic term, Technology, I
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wanted to know what specific types of technology the teachers were being
trained on.
3. What percentage of professional development is included within the teacher salary
versus voluntary and in addition to the teacher's current workload?
o Rationale:

In an article I read about how South Korea uses culture to help persuade
the general public to be on board with current educational policies, there
was a lot of talk about how different companies trained teachers how to
implement various programs within various schools. I could not find very
much information about how much of these trainings were completely
voluntary versus how much of these trainings were funded by the
programs or Ministry of Education (SeongKyun & YoungJun, 2015).

4. What types of computing devices are available to students at the primary level of
education?
o Rationale:

Due to the fact that a large amount of teacher training is based on new
technologies, I wanted to know what types of computing devices are
available to the students to use. A lot of the research I found discussed
how advanced South Korea is as far as how many homes and schools have
dependable access to the internet. Gokkaya and Levent state that the
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majority of Korea public can access internet anytime and anywhere

(Gokkaya & Levent, 2014).
5. Are the computing devices available for the students provided by the school, or are
they privately owned by the student?
o Rationale:

In order to expand upon the previous question, it is obvious that much of

the Korean public has access to the internet and various computing
devices. I wanted to know if the schools are funding the devices, or if the
students are bringing their own to school.

Results Analysis Essay:

Changed Perceptions
After reviewing the responses from my interviewees, I was able to see a clearer picture of
South Koreas education system. My interviewees came from three very different perspectives,
which gave me a good balance of understanding.
My first interview, Kate Stephens, works for a public relations firm that supports a
research organization that conducts research and compiles data on many different successful
education systems. Much of the information Ms. Stephens provided me was new information
and resources to help answer many of my interview questions.

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My second interview, Dr. Ju Hur, works for an organization within South Korea that
conducts research and helps write the education policy for the Ministry of Education. Prior to
this interview, my I learned that in my research, South Korea is very innovative and ranks high
with technology usage in comparison to many other countries in the world. Because of this,
many of my interview questions centered on exactly how much technology training the teachers
receive. It was my interpretation from the research that much of the teacher training was similar
in the amount of technology integration training it included. However, after interviewing Dr.
Hur, I learned that the amount of ICT training a teacher received hugely depended on the subject
the teacher teaches.
For my third and final interview, I had the pleasure of interviewing an actual public
school teacher in South Korea. Ji Young teaches tenth grade English Conversation and was able
to give me the perspective of her own experience with the teacher training in South Korea. Ms.
Young confirmed what Dr. Hur stated about the amount of ICT training varying depending on the
subject. Ms. Young stated that only about 10-15 percent of her training provided by the Ministry
of Education is actually centered on technology integration.
New information gained from interviews
Although my interviews were successful, I still learned a great deal from other resources
one of my interviewees provided me with in order to answer many of the questions I asked. One
huge piece of information that I gained from this particular interview was the extent of the role
that culture plays on the education system in South Korea. When comparing this education
system to my own in the United States, I couldnt help but think about how motivated the South
Korean students and citizens seemed in comparison to the students in the United States.
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One article, written by NCEE, spoke directly to how the importance of education is
incredibly ingrained in the South Korean culture. The article states that "In South Korea,
virtually every form of opportunity, from marriage prospects to job prospects, depends on which
high school you got into and which college you went to" (NCEE, 2015). The article goes on to
give different examples within culture that are almost completely dependent on a persons
educational background. In South Korea, employees are turned down from jobs solely because
of where they attended college. A persons rank within a company is determined by where that
candidate received his or her education way more so than business experience level. A parents
status in culture is determined by where their child was accepted to go to high school or college.
Also, children are required by law to care for their parents in their old age. A good job and high
status will promise them a good retirement fund for their parents. The article summed this
section up by saying, For all these reasons, parents work very hard to assure their childrens
success in school and children work hard in school to please their parents" (NCEE, 2015).
All of the examples listed in the article are different from how culture is run here in the
United States. Ones measure of success and retirement is not fully dependent solely on their
educational background. There are many more factors involved, which puts education at a lower
importance level in the culture of the United States. This of course causes a ripple effect. When
passing laws or trying to get support for innovative educational policies, it is much harder to
convince the general public to listen as much as they would in South Korea.

Email Response Attachments:

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As interview responses came in, I began to compile the responses and track the progress of
others using Google Drive. Below are hyperlinks to the various documents relevant to the
interviewees responses and my log of communication throughout the duration of this case study.

Log of Interview Contacts

South Korea Cover Letter & Interview Questions Template
Kate Stephens Interview Response Email
Dr. Ju Hur Interview Response
Ji Young Interview Response

References:
Gkkaya, Z. & Levent, F. (2014). Education policies underlying south korea's economic success.
Journal Plus Education / Educatia Plus, 10(1), 275-291.
Hur, J. (2015). Interview by email.
NCEE. (2015). South korea overview. Retrieved from http://www.ncee.org/programsaffiliates/center-on-international-education-benchmarking/top-performingcountries/south-korea-overview/
SeongKyun, J., & YoungJun, L. (2015). A study of social support Methods for the strengthening
of computing education in korea. International journal of software engineering & its
applications, 9(4), 105-111. doi:10.14257/ijseia.2015.9.4.12
Stephens, K. (2015). Interview by email.
Young, J. (2015). Interview by email.

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