Education Gangnam Style: ABC Foreign Correspondent, By Matthew Carney

As a student in Australia, I have had limited experience with education systems outside of the Australian programme. The short documentary, "Education Gangnam Style," reported on by Matthew Carney for ABC Foreign Correspondent, is an expository piece about South Korea's education system. South Korea has achieved very high scores internationally when ranked with other education systems, beating Australia’s rankings. The documentary aims to reveal the negative affects that the high achieving system has on the children within in. Most South Korean students feel as though their only option is to get in to a respected university, for which competition is high. They have to compete with their friends, studying for hours each day. Students spend so …show more content…
A typical high school student will not only attend a full day of school, but also spend hours at a cram school, or "hagweon", after school is finished. Three quarters of South Korean students attend a hagweon. The government had to impose a 10pm curfew on hagweons, to force students to go home and sleep. The documentary includes footage of people in hagweons who have fallen asleep while studying, which is a common occurrence. This use of mise en scene shows the viewer a common real life situation in South Korea. Voiceover describes how students even study on the way to and from schools. All this leaves students with no time to engage in other activities. Student Huh Jae Woo says when he is studying, "there just isn't me." He does not even have time to "read a book" during school term. In Australia, students are encouraged to participate in extra-curricular pursuits. Universities even ask for evidence of participation in other activities. The need for time away from studies spent on other pursuits is recognised. South Korea places no value on hobbies or recreation. Learning about this cultural difference has helped me appreciate our opinion of out-of-school