Presidential hopefuls should ensure fair educational opportunities

By Song Kyung-jin

The political season is heating up to be as hot as the weather is this summer. Few conversations end without a mention of the presidential candidates and political developments nowadays. The next presidential election is dated to take place on March 9, 2022, so it is perhaps too early for the candidates to draw public attention to their key campaign agenda points.

Great attention to candidates' campaign agenda points has in fact never been a salient feature of South Korean politics, compared to candidates' characteristics and personal histories full of hardships. However, the buzzword running through the agenda points of all the candidates this time around is the "F" word, fairness.

Fairness in Korea often starts with or erodes with fairness or unfairness in terms of educational opportunities. In Korea, unfairness, perceived or real, in educational opportunities, can at times even lead to the toppling of an administration and a shift of power.

If we lived in normal times, Korea would have one reason to be pleased: the test results of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The PISA test assesses 15-year-old students' abilities to use their reading, mathematics and science knowledge, as well as their skills that are essential for full participation in society, along with the students' well-being. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the triennial test scheduled for this year was postponed to 2022.

Korea's 15-year-old students have done well consistently since the test's launch in 1997. In its 2018 survey, over one million 15-year-old students, including 6,650 Korean students living in 79 high- and middle-income countries participated. Korea's 15-year-olds ranked ninth in reading and seventh in mathematics and science. Kudos to Korea's 15-year-olds!

However, Korea's PISA test results and students' overall education competence should not be thought of as identical twins. There appears to be a trend of decline across the three subjects since 2015. The average score of the top 10% of students declined by more than 7 points on average per three-year period, or more than 20 points per decade. Moreover, a significant widening of performance differences between the highest-achieving students and the lowest-achieving students was also observed.

This trend is not unrelated to concerns often raised by college professors about their students' literacy skills, arising from the lack of reading, writing and debate education that stimulates creative and critical thinking. Exactly in this line of thinking, an essay test has been introduced in the college entrance examination. Contrary to its original purpose however, it was made to fit conveniently into the rote memory education system. It became just another test for which standardized answers can be bought with money through private education services.

Korean households spend a large share of their incomes on private education services: 8.3 percent of total household expenditures in 2019, down from 11.7 percent in 2012. 66.5 percent of primary and secondary students participate in one or more private education services in 2020. Yet surprisingly, according to World Bank data, Korea's government expenditure on education as a percentage of gross domestic product was 4.3 percent in 2016, lower than the OECD average of 5 percent in 2017.

High private education expenditures have been singled out as one of the two biggest reasons for young couples to opt out of having children, along with exorbitant housing prices. Korea has the world's lowest birthrate: 0.84 per woman in 2020. The general perception is that the more you spend on private education, the better your child does at school. So, if the parent(s) cannot afford costly private education services, the children will likely become low achievers with fewer job opportunities in the future.

The PISA test showed that one's socio-economic status was a striking predictor of a student's performance in mathematics and science. More Korean students said that they were dissatisfied with their lives (57 percent of Korean students vs. the OECD average of 67 percent) and expressed greater fear of failure than their counterparts in other OECD countries (75 percent of Korean students vs. the OECD average of 56 percent).

Adding to these issues, the COVID-19 pandemic has been widening the education gap and wealth inequality, depriving the less privileged of opportunities ― present and future. Given that educational attainment correlates to future income, the lack of fair educational opportunities means more inequality and inequity in the future.

This situation may be already paving the way for a tinderbox of social dissatisfaction and public wrath in the future. The impeachment of former president Park Geun-hye might not have happened without the infamous remark of a youth that inflamed public sentiment, "Your lack of capability finds its fault with your parents, and money can also buy your capability."

The nation needs to reorient its thinking and policies toward putting more resources and restoring confidence in public education as a way to ensure fair education opportunities, leading to more opportunities in life. Strong public education can serve this purpose. Competent public education comes with competent teachers trained in solid pedagogical ethics.

The presidential hopefuls should bear in mind that the perceived unfairness in terms of educational opportunities can destabilize the nation as well as present a set of clear guidelines for the next administration they aspire to lead.

Dr. Song Kyung-jin (kj_song@hotmail.com) led the Institute for Global Economics (IGE), based in Seoul, and served as special adviser to the chairperson of the Presidential Committee for the Seoul G20 Summit in the Office of the President. Now, she chairs the international cooperation committee called the Innovative Economy Forum.