Swedish news criticizes Korea's education system

Article: "Education should not be done like the Koreans do it" <Swedish News>

Source: Yonhap News via Nate

A Swedish documentary called the 'Miracle of Korean Education' talked about how Korean students are ranked at the highest in the world and credited it to their 17-hour study habits and expensive after school academies along with societal + parental pressure. Students barely sleep four hours a night as a result.

"Korea's education system revolves around textbooks and testing. Students rarely have an opportunity for group or autonomous activities. Students are essentially oppressed and the pressure put on these teens is too great. Korea needs to be concerned about the longterm effects this will have on them. Sweden needs to improve our own education system but not through Korea's method of having students study over 60 hours a week."

1. [+855, -20] Sweden is wrong... Students study for longer than 60 hours a week here.

2. [+765, -17] Well, students have to get into the habit of studying 60 hours a week so that they can graduate and ease into working 100 hours a week ㅜㅜ

3. [+666, -33] Study like the Koreans do and there will be no future. The only thing we know how to do is study, nothing else. Sitting at the desk all day does nothing for improving social behavior and human interactions. Society is so reliant on communicating with one another... what can these students do for our future?

4. [+30, -2] The amount of studying is not the problem but the fact that these students don't have any friends. Their lives revolve around goals that are nothing but numbers so all of their friends become competition and enemies. This continues up to competition for college and jobs... why do you think teens have such a high suicide rate now? They live a lonely life with no friends and only enemies. This is the reality of Korea's education system.

5. [+25, -1] Sweden definitely hit the nail on the head... Korea's education system should never be followed.

6. [+21, -2] I tell myself that I don't want to raise my kids like that either but I have no choice... even if I don't put her in an after school academy, she has no friends to play with at the park...

7. [+17, -0] Education is not Korea's only problem... Sweden should never copy anything about Korea. Korea is the culmination of everything that is wrong with capitalist countries.

8. [+10, -1] It's part of the reason why Koreans are so passive. Since youth, we're conditioned to learn only what we need to know so even in college, kids only want to learn what's going to be on the test and never anything else. Once they join society, they don't do anything other than what they're expected to, and anyone who strays from that pattern is ridiculed or criticized for acting up or attention whoring.

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