There are two hilariously-related stories in The Korea Times today concerning education.
The first is about how the vice education minister is continuing the current presidential administration's crackdown on hagwons, and trying to make sure students are home by 10 p.m.
While I don't agree with hagwons in general, I think they have become vital in Korea to the success of students. The kids are NOT going to do homework and study on their own, so the hagwons fill the role of study enforcer. The students go, learn from some native speakers and then cram for their language proficiency tests.
By taking that away, the public schools will come off looking terrible, because test scores will drop. Of course, they're not asking to remove the hagwons totally. So my thought might not really be pertinent to the discussion.
It is interesting what the vice education minister is hoping students acheive through their education.
From the story:
'"Simply put, our goals are to enable students to be at home by 10 p.m. rather than in cram schools, and to help them become rational thinkers rather than receptacles of rote knowledge," Lee said.'
Haha. Keep trying!
The second story is awesomely hilarious! Apparently, native speaking English teachers will be replaced by ... wait for it ... ROBOTS!!!
That's funny by itself. The real knee-slapper is that this is expected by 2018!
They hope to ease into it with robot helpers at first. At that point, the native English speakers will be expected to teach via Internet conference call. Yes, because controlling them while we're in the room isn't hard enough. Let's see how it works when we're on a video screen.
Anyway, it's just another big step in robot evolution. First they're teaching, then they're banging us and finally they're eating old peoples' medicine and killing all humans. Doesn't sound terrible, right?
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