
South Korean police impose curfew on late-night studying (2011) - apsec112
http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2094427,00.html
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Thriptic
As the article notes, this is treating the symptom rather than the problem.
When you have a system which dramatically favors graduates from top schools,
entrance criteria solely based on single exams, and punishment for single exam
failures for life (ie if you don't do well on exam 1 you are effectively
booted from the prestigious track forever), of course everyone is going to
cram relentlessly for exams. If you send people home from cram schools,
students will simply be forced to study at home. I'm not sure what the
solution is for this (other than to create more slots at good schools or more
good schools) but curfews certainly will not work.

~~~
esotericn
It's not like the system is fundamentally better in other countries. In
Britain there's a colossal effect from landing a place at a few good schools /
universities.

We mainly handle that by setting low expectations for most of the populace
(e.g. the class system) and gate it by cost.

~~~
umvi
People always criticize America for having expensive universities but I always
thought it was horribly depressing when my German friends told me that their
entire future was staked on a single exam. Do poorly and not only can you not
get into college but you'll be a sanitation worker for the rest of your life
(or similar).

~~~
Zenbit_UX
How are American SATs different?

~~~
Reelin
You can retake the SAT (and GRE, and MCAT, and ...) as many times as you'd
like (and can afford, I suppose).

Also, the amount of weight such exams are given varies greatly by the
institution here.

Edit: For the SAT in particular, most publish tables showing their historical
admission rate as it correlates to the combination of high school GPA and SAT
score.

~~~
TingPing
You can even go to many colleges without the sat (nothing prestigious ofc)

~~~
unishark
Many top schools are no longer requiring test scores in fact. There is an
argument that the test itself is somehow biased against under-represented
groups. Also, less nobly, if a school makes test scores optional, their
average test scores increase (which is a factor in rankings) since students
will only submit them if they have good scores.

~~~
saagarjha
> Many top schools are no longer requiring test scores in fact.

When I applied to college, there were a number of schools that has something
that was “optional” but word on the street was that you’d have no hope of
getting in without it. How “optional” are these, really?

~~~
iends
It’s probably like a lot of companies that offer remote work: if you have
demonstrated already you are world class, they’ll make exceptions.

~~~
saagarjha
FWIW, all the people I know who went to “world class” universities did all the
“optional” things.

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lasagnaphil
Ah, as a Korean who experienced all of this bullshit (in middle/high school),
I have a few additional points I want to make:

\- Standardized test scores aren't either the culprit or the panacea for the
privatization of education. No matter what the process of selecting students
is, there will always be cram schools willing to exploit that process to the
maximum degree. Korea in fact has another way to enter college without that
single exam (called _susi_, it's basically your GPA + portfolio + cover
letter), which is less well known than the default route (called _jungsi_).
And guess what, there are a shit-ton of crams schools for that too. There are
cram schools solely for entering International Math/Physics Olympiads, because
they are one of the several ways to enter Medical School, which are the
hardest type of colleges you can try in Korea. There are cram schools for art
college examimations, cram schools for your high school GPA, cram schools for
entering science/writing contests (so you can lengthen your portfolio), cram
schools for just anything you can imagine related to college admissions.

\- It's becoming more and more of a lie in Korea that simply entering a good
university will automatically land you a good job, especially in the non-STEM
sectors. Humanities students in top universities are now scrambling to get
good GPAs, TOEFL scores, and any activities that would lengthen their
portfolio, simply because jobs are very scarce even for them. A lot of them
are preparing for government administration jobs which would give them good
job security. And guess what, those jobs are _also_ determined by a single
test, how tragic! Same goes for law schools, medical universities, etc... As a
Korean, you'll almost never leave the perpetual requirement of nonsensical
tests and competitions for quite some time even after high school, it's pretty
harrowing.

~~~
TuringNYC
Firstly - I’m sorry to hear about this experience and don’t want to undermine
the pain here.

I’ll note that some of the schools I graduated from in the US (NYC) are moving
from exams to a “holistic” system of entrance, and my feeling is that is even
worse in many cases.

In the holistic system: \- you don’t know what the criteria is \- friendships
and contacts matter \- you can’t study to fully strengthen your chances \- you
don’t get feedback on what you are doing wrong \- in the extreme cases is very
open to bias and corruption (eg many “holistic” systems actively filter out
Asian candidates)

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bitxbit
We desperately need to move away from these education systems. They worked
well when resources were limited and identifying gifted students took
priority. The world is a much different place now and we should focus on
individualized curriculum and mastery.

~~~
emodendroket
Resources are still limited.

~~~
thrwaway69
Give free birth control everywhere and stipend to poor couples including a
free state sponsored education program for stopping them from becoming poor
parents. Will save the state and possible parents much more in resources to
spend.

What a simple solution but of course, that won't happen because you need low
tier workers in the society that the state and others can leech off from.

Rich need their prostitutes, drivers, maids, low cost labor and employees.
Society need numbers, labor which they can abuse for cleaning the filth and
boosting themselves in a sacrificial ceremony.

For example, UP state in india has a population density of 828 persons per km²

What good reason do you think there is not in spending money to stop poor
people from having kids?

I don't get the ethical issue about it other than it being made up by people
for patting their backs. Government can ban smoking, drugs, porn, video games,
internet sites, alcohol, and many other things to keep you safe from "harming"
yourself. Doctors can veto your opinion or voice if they think you are a
danger to yourself.

All research shows kids living in extreme poverty has a dire future, lot of
bad health issues and will most likely remain in poverty. Why can't we ban or
at least try to spend money to that cause?

3.6k kids die due to hunger/deficiency every day in india. What if they
weren't born?

Why have so many people that you need to resort to filtering for everything in
life?

~~~
econcon
>What good reason do you think there is not in spending money to stop poor
people from having kids?

Dystopian world where people aren't allowed to have kids, just because they
are poor?

Much better is to make sure poors have enough money to raise their kids. Offer
them government assistance.

~~~
thrwaway69
That only solves one of the problems and the GP was talking about limited
resources which doesn't change even if you make the income/wealth distribution
equal.

One person would still need 8 litres of water, a piece of land, food and other
essential limited resources.

How do you plan to let all the people have kids with an existing population
density of 828 persons per km² without ruining it for everyone?

What other filter do you propose is realistic? Do you think there should be a
test, higher age requirement, education background or something?

Clearly, the current population is too much here. Sure it is declining
(predicted to be normal replacement fertility rate by the end of 2020) but
that will take long time to materialize and then you have government doing
something to stop it because failing economy. Why even set your whole
structure in a way that requires numbers? This is a perverted incentive and
should be stopped.

[https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10668-015-9711-5](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10668-015-9711-5)

Optimum world population is something around 2 billion. Not 8 billion and
growing.

~~~
AstralStorm
As a counterargument, we're taking only a tiny amount of land that's feasible
to develop, and even less of total area of Earth. Scarcity is caused by
concentration of jobs in cities. Where there are jobs and education, there
become cities. There's more than enough water to go around, but not energy to
desalinate in drier places like China and India. There is a surplus of food in
many areas, and most of lacking ones are limited by water.

You cannot speak of an optimum without having decided a target. It's optimum
everyone having their own private jet?

------
Mirioron
This reads like satire. Surely there are better ways to deal with the problem
than using the police. The police probably also have better things to do. In
fact, this reads like it's a parody of the US war on drugs. It's so misguided.

The article is from 2011. Has the situation improved in South Korea? Because I
can see that their results in PISA 2019 were still very good.

~~~
unishark
I was thinking it reads almost like propaganda. Darn kids are just so smart
and hardworking, cops are forced to ride around in their stylish Kia Sorento's
and make the little geniuses enjoy life and get some sleep. Was surprised to
see nothing about the success of Samsung and K-pop.

What's really going on here is child abuse. The cops are trying to protect
children from their parents. Sleeping in class then going to cram school all
evening is silly. Obviously the parent is the one who is demanding more than
the kid can handle.

~~~
throwaway17_17
I’m not going to disagree regarding the parental responsibility. However, I
would point out that this is similar to college courses where the final test
is 100% of the course grade. Of course the priority goes to prepping for the
test. There is no benefit from paying attention in class, when performance on
this test can exclude someone with a perfect GPA. The system is as responsible
as the parents are in this case.

But on the bright side, it seems more fair than Jim-Bob’s dad paying Harvard a
few million to get his slacker kid into school despite having worse
qualifications than many applicants.

~~~
unishark
I don't think nationwide testing is a horrible way to handle higher education
at all. Especially for developing countries. It's basically a big IQ test, so
no matter how bad your school is, the cream rises to the top.

However I think cramming is a by-product of "bad" education in general. By
which I mean the Asian style of teaching based on rote practice and
memorization. Obviously more hours means more skill at cranking out those
answers and more retention of "regurgitatible" facts.

US education is concerned (to at least a higher degree) with higher cognitive
skills and the ability to solve more challenging problems generally. I think
this is due to having a more industry-demands-driven system. As opposed to a
top-down govt-imposed system trying to drive development (i.e. Asia). And if
you don't pay attention in class you can't cram your way past a bunch of hard
questions. Also I think it is very hard to make standardized tests which have
challenging problems. Written language is just too vague. Even the smartest
students will often not understand what is asked of them unless they were
taught in exactly that same wording and writing style. It's far easier to
differentiate smarter students by giving easy canned problems. The usual
suspects will still be at the top. But of course easy canned questions create
a opportunity in that weaker students can "hack" the system by just cramming
enough to keep up with the smarter students.

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mattanimation
This was bad when I was in Seoul from 2003-2005 and I couldn't believe how
much school was thrown on to kids, like little 5 year old even. The suicide
rate was rather high for those who failed their big college entrance exams
because they didn't even want to think of life as a failure and cramming even
more for another year to try again. I really hope they are able to change
things around.

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greendestiny_re
This kind of pressure is literal torture but what I find the most tragic is
how it still doesn't prepare the kids to be better workers. For me, no exam
has in any way reflected the kind of freelancing work environment I am in
right now. If I compare exams to work:

\- Clients who assign me a writing task don't expect me to know everything.
I'm actually required to do research and reference other sources. If I tried
writing a text without using the internet, I'd be very limited in what I can
write and how.

\- I'm given plenty of time. If there's a rush task, the client will ask
beforehand if that's OK with me and pay extra. I can write a text in 45
minutes but then the client pays extra. The clients acknowledge that I'm
existing in the real world where I might want to have time off, go on a
vacation or just have a family or health crisis.

\- I'll be given detailed instructions on how to succeed in my task because
that's the most desirable outcome. Exams ignore the ultimate outcome or do the
exact opposite and I've seen plenty of them intentionally provide vague
instructions and questions to fail as many students as possible.

I feel more free when doing a single 2,000-word SEO text and cramming in 10-15
instances of "how to fix damaged hard drive" or "best baby diapers" than these
kids have felt in their entire school life. This is just tragic and will have
enormous repercussions on South Korea's future. I wish I could somehow reach
out and tell them that it's going to be OK and they should not stress out that
much about bad grades.

I had bad grades in high school because my family fell apart during that time
and I was overwhelmed with emotions. No teacher asked me if I'm all right or
how I'm feeling, they just blindly pushed on with the curriculum that ignores
the fact kids are humans too. We'd never put a dog through this kind of stress
and would hound the person who did, but for kids it's apparently perfectly
fine.

To all of you stressing out about grades, find someone capable of speaking
with you like an adult. I did it and I feel those mature conversations and
emotional support literally saved my life.

This is what work is like for me and I wish everyone stressing out about their
grades would know they can have it as well.

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psychlops
This is quite dated. Is there any evidence that this curfew is still in
effect?

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shadowprofile77
That this is so arbitrarily possible in a legal sense speaks very poorly of
the South Korean government's notions about individual rights in the home.

~~~
detaro
Regulating the opening time of _businesses_ and inspecting _business
locations_ is infringing on individual rights in the home?

