[Editorial] Now's the Time to Save Rural Schools

The rise and fall of any community is closely connected to the vicissitudes of its schools. Parents leave their communities for urban areas in search of better education for their children. Small town schools have fewer and fewer students, turning schools into sub-campuses (bun'gyo) of larger schools in larger towns, and then soon enough they get closed down altogether. When schools close children and their parents leave town and the elderly are all who remain. That is why saving a town has to begin with saving its school.

It's also why a report on the disparity between education in cities and farming areas released Wednesday by the Korean Education Development Institute is particularly noteworthy. "There exists no small difference between the learning accomplishments of students in cities and in farming regions," it says. "The cause is less because of the quality of classroom education and, rather, is largely because of differences in personal background such as private tutoring." According to documents on student performance from 2003, students in eup and myeon localities demonstrated a gap of 12 to 20 points from their fellow students in Seoul in the main Korean school subjects of Korean, math, and foreign language. There was only a difference of about 5 points when only the effects of classroom education were measured and personal background factors such as private tutoring were excluded. Furthermore, the differences when it comes to the "school effect" are dropping. Granted, one still cannot say it's time to abandon the old saying that says "if you give birth to children send them to Seoul." A difference of 20 points is a big difference to overcome.

Now is the chance to pump life in to schools in fishing and agricultural communities for the sake of balanced regional development. They say that because of "special selection procedures" for students from fishing and farming areas will now account for 4 percent of students accepted to universities starting next year, the increased importance of high school grades in acceptance to university, and Seoul National University's new system of "regionally-balanced student selection," there is an increasing number of students in urban areas transferring to rural schools. There are growing expectations and aspirations regarding student performance in small communities and as a result teachers are becoming more ambitious. If the quality of classroom education is improved the trend will become permanent. Ways to go about accomplishing that would be to improve the treatment teachers receive in rural schools and promote the growth of "superior" and "independent" schools.

The Hankyoreh, 15 September 2005.

[Translations by Seoul Selection (PMS)]