About 10% of the students in Seoul-area foreign schools are Koreans, reports Yonhap. In fact, at some foreign schools, the student body is 30—60% Korean.
Seoul councilwoman Lee Su-jeong of the Democratic Labor Party said during an administrative investigation of Seoul Office of Education that some US-owned foreigner schools had become “royal academies” for the children of wealthy Koreans. In the case of Seoul Academy International School, she said, 60% of the students were Korean.
According to Seoul Office of Education data, as of March, the US-owned Seoul Academy International School had the highest percentage of Korean students — 101 of 166 students.
No. 2 was the French Lycée international Xavier (43.2%), followed by US-owned Asia Pacific International School (36.6%), Korea International School (30.8%) and Centennial Christian School (27.9%).
Of a total 5,573 students at Seoul-area foreign schools, 503 — or 9.0% — were Korean.
Of the foreign schools running courses K thru 12, the expensive US-owned schools charged about 10—12.8 million won a year as of March.
To boost the educational environment for resident foreigners, the city is pushing plans to establish additional foreign schools in three areas — Banpo-dong, the DMC in Sangam-dong and Gaepo-dong. For the project, the city has set aside 154.4 billion won for next year alone.
Needless to say, Lee was less than happy with this, explaining that since Koreans who have lived more than five years overseas or had foreign residency could enrol, local foreign schools had become “royal academies” for the kids of rich Koreans. “Seoul City must completely withdraw its plan, which wastes taxpayer money, to establish new foreign schools,” she said.
About this, a city official said a presidential order limiting Korean enrolment in foreign schools to 30% would soon go into effect, and that they would use that basis to set up new foreign schools that prioritise foreign students. He said they’d word so that the schools lead to foreign investment.
Marmot’s Note: I don’t know as much about this issue as I probably should, but it does seem odd that the city would spend taxpayer money to help set up private schools for rich folk.
{ 35 comments… read them below or add one }
As was explained to me, though the student body in one of these “foreign” schools is supposed to be made up of a minority of Korean students whereas, in reality, these schools end up being mostly Korean, whose students have poor English skills.
Due to this lack of English skills, the quality of the classes lag since the students can not keep up with the teacher.
If I were a non-Korean — which I am — why would I want to send my kid to a school that has a problem teaching its curriculum in English?! Considering the price these people want to charge, sending my kid to America to public school is cheaper, if not about the same cost.
How about a school that only lets in kids that have at least one foreign parent? I would be interested in that.
It also must be noted that in such “official” studies, Korean citizens holding a foreign passport are not
included in this “Korean” portion percentage–they are listed as “foreign.” (They do this also at universities for faculty as well as students, so that they can boast of an on-paper “international” staff and student body). The number of Koreans (meaning K.-residing parents and extended family, K. home) is much greater than the percentages given. The “foreign” school near my house has 94% (true) Korean students. Puts real “foreigners” (non-Koreans who have earned the title through years of being pointed at, stared at, and labeled as “outsider in this wonderfully culturally homogeneous well) in a pickle when they have real-life “foreign” kids who can’t go to the “foreign” school because the demand for places jacks the f’ing price up to an absurd level. How about a fair discount for non-Koreans who really need these schools???????
P.S. I meant one *really* foreign parent.
Whenever I meet Korean students at my university from foreign high schools, I’m shocked that they supposedly learned English. immediately you can tell their pronunciation is totally off and they stutter.
Ah, Korea. So screwed up in so many ways.
I worked at a foreign high school outside of Daejon for a year. The entire ‘foreign’ population consisted of two students with dual citizenship and myself as the only foreign teacher.
A lot of my hagwon’s students are KIS kids and their reading/writing/grammar is generally a good bit above the American average for their grade level. And yes, they have very very very parents, much to my boss’s eternal delight.
What would be the point of sending our kids to one of those schools, then?
The situation is really exasperating.
The solution, obviously, is to bar entry to foreign schools to anyone named Kim, Lee, Choi, or Park, or Chang, or Han, or who looks Korean. No slanty eyes. Otherwise, I don’t see how we can achieve a “real” foreign school without sneaky ethnic Koreans somehow getting their smelly kids enrolled alongside us worthies.
Is Koreatown Mike Kim, 1.5 generation immigrant to America, married to a Korean woman, whose 10 year-old US-citizen children grew up in Houston speaking English and a bit of Spanish, but not all that much Korean, a “foreigner” or a “Korean” for these purposes? Because I see a lot of Koreatown Mikes as managers of multinational corporations, and to me they seem pretty American. Not “American” enough for you lot, I guess…
Anyway, unlike a lot of commenters on this issue, I actually have children enrolled in a foreign school, and I don’t find the educational environment lacking at all. Yes, there are kids who struggle with English, but guess what? — some of them are from Francophone or Lusophone Africa, or Japan, or South America. Should we keep those kids out of the foreign schools too? Or just the ethnic Koreans?
Give me a break. This kind of colonialist attitude toward having to rub elbows with the locals makes me weary. And yet, it’s a perennial complaint of the foreign-investor set: Not enough places at the only two of 30 foreign schools in Seoul I would deign to send my children. So the government is trying to “improve the foreign-investment environment” by increasing capacity at schools which would satisfy this set.
It is a shame that the local schools suck so badly, though.
By the way, most commenters might not be aware, but Korean public and “private” schools receive government funding. The amount of money is quite substantial. Public elementary and middle schools are free of charge, but both public and private high schools charge tuition to their students, and they typically occupy premises long ago secured for schools.
Therefore, it is not at all inappropriate for the government to assist new foreign schools with securing facilities — land and buildings. What seems inappropriate to me is that the foreign schools have to pay for those facilities — buying them back from the government, as it were — and do not receive the subsidy that “private” schools get.
That money does come with strings attached, though, in that the government forces its useless curriculum standards on the schools and compels the schools to allow the teachers’ unions to run amok. The premium at the foreign schools reflects the value of being free from the Ministry of Education.
Personally, I think Korea would be well-served by abolition of the Ministry of Education.
The only thing that’s going to do is dramatically increasing the numbers of eyelid cosmetic surgeries in South Korea.
I don’t really see the problem as long as the actual education is kosher… Christ, we have kids who can barely speak English HERE as well, but you don’t see John and Amy struggling in their education because of them.
Do these schools gear their kids towards 수능, SAT, le bac, or other postsecondary education paths?
SAT, as far as I know. Much easier than soo-neung. I think all the ones I met in the states attending US universities never even studied for soo-neung.
More than half that I met were Korean blooded. Some were half. Few were 100% waegookins.
le bac is overated. They’d go to a French speaking school if that was the case. Le bac only applies to France, most likely. I think even the Canadians take the SAT, not the le bac. Le bac is probably the hardest one out of all.
No SATs in Canada. There were provincial standardized final exams, but I found them to be quite easy.
bumfromkorea
“The only thing that’s going to do is dramatically increasing the numbers of eyelid cosmetic surgeries in South Korea.”
You said it as a pun, and I laughed. But I couldn’t laugh very long. Because sadly in Korea it’s a realty. Some parents here are stupid enough to give their kids tongue surgery thinking it will help them pronounce English better. Isn’t surgery like this child abuse?
Brendon is right, there remains a shortage of quality international education in Korea. The response from the government or SMG is still pretty much the same “we know what you need” and sadly, they don’t. Any benchmarking of world class international schools would show Seoul well below par… But you have to look outside Korea to get that kind of information… Which international companies employees do, but Korea’s officials do not…
“Is Koreatown Mike Kim, 1.5 generation immigrant to America, married to a Korean woman, whose 10 year-old US-citizen children grew up in Houston speaking English and a bit of Spanish, but not all that much Korean, a “foreigner” or a “Korean” for these purposes? Because I see a lot of Koreatown Mikes as managers of multinational corporations, and to me they seem pretty American. Not “American” enough for you lot, I guess…
Anyway, unlike a lot of commenters on this issue, I actually have children enrolled in a foreign school, and I don’t find the educational environment lacking at all. Yes, there are kids who struggle with English, but guess what? — some of them are from Francophone or Lusophone Africa, or Japan, or South America. Should we keep those kids out of the foreign schools too? Or just the ethnic Koreans?”
I have no problem with Korean Americans, Japanese, Francophone Africans (I am a Francophone, after all), etc, attending these schools. They are all foreigners, after all.
But, I always thought that the purpose of having international schools in such an homogeneous society was to cater to international kids, allow them to learn in a safe environment away from the gawking and teasing and, to a lesser extent, seek to shape the local kids’ perception of the world in a positive manner. For a school to achieve any of these goals, don’t you think that, at the very least, a sizable minority of their students should be foreigners?
…Not to say that this isn’t true for all the international schools. I’m sure that at some of them the number of internationals students is relatively high.
In any case, for us, the problem of sending our kid to an international school is not an economic one but a geographic one. There are simply too few of them outside of Seoul, and none of them are within a reasonable driving distance of our home. Moving is out of the question for business reasons.
no SAT’s in Canada?
it must be really easy to get into a Canadian college.
I mean, SAT was used just to compare that kid with a 4.0 and this kid with a 4.0. And they give you bloody 3 attempts, taking best of 3. Or they did, a long time ago.
Gpa is bullshit. Varies by where you go to school. All gpa says, is this kid probably works fairly hard every day.
I would have to agree at this point.
They remind me more of the people that cut, maim and over trim so many good trees in my neighborhood, leaving everyone else shaking their head, wondering “why!?” and the irony is that these people are supposed to promote education though they diligently act out their ignorance as if it were a bit part in a school play that they have memorized.
Wouldn’t it be best, to be strict with the rules. A foreign school, a foreign passport needed. No exemptions. (Though that isn’t the Korean way.)
B. Carr seems to be on both sides of the issue, with the (if you REALLY want weary)ungrounded charge that non – Korean parents living in Seoul are new colonialists, mixed with the observation that the local schools suck.
They suck, in most cases, because students with poor English are slowing everyone else down. What could be more simple? And who said anything about not wanting their kids to mix with Ethnic Koreans? Foreign parents just want good schools for their kids. There are not nearly enough. Is this hard to grasp?
Don’t hold your breath for this to change tho, folks. Korea is for Koreans and, as a co-worker of mine likes to say : “Your shit is weak.”
Create government public schools for foreigners.
foreigners = without Korean citizenship.
The problem with foreign schools is what convinced us to leave Korea. There are two, interrelated problems,
1) Wealthy Korean and Korean pseudo-foreigners making up most of the student body
2) A very high tuition resulting from that huge demand for education in English.
There really does need to be a school offering good, affordable English education to ex-pat kids in Korea, that middle class expats can afford. Brendon, and other fortunate folks can send their children to SFS, but anyone in academia can’t.
Maybe what we need to do is to make two types of schools – one for foreigners in English, and one for wealthy Koreans who want classes in English.
I almost never post here, but feel I should on this topic because I know it.
To those who make comical points or agree with them about slant eyes and smelly kids, I will say you are following an Ass in things you are don’t understand. Even if you are being satirical, you insult my family, so I pass my gas in your general direction, but mean it for your nostrils.
To define a few things, the “taxpayer” money being used needs a contextual basis in reference to real international schools or what can be loosely called foreign schools or international school in Korea.
Foreign schools “can” mean foreign ownership and a foreign curriculum. International schools “should” mean meeting certain standards and being accredited international. I can call my hagwon MIT. No one will stop me.
A well established private school in Seoul is beginning an “international” middle school, post their “immersion primary school”. What does it really mean? — Who knows?
The Harvard of schools here is SFS. Nothing you may read or hear applies to them. They have a significant endowment. TCIS is in the same vein. SIS is about the same and KIS wants to be, but is not. The rest depend on where you live and what you need.
However, from the American Chamber of Commerce http://www.amchamkorea.org/publications/2002ikbc/education.com It finalizes with
Due to the transient nature of the student population, it is difficult for private international schools to raise funds from such (private) sources. In many countries around the world, governments realize the importance of international schools’ existence, and the restrictive nature of their finances. Therefore, such governments historically provided financial subsidies and concessions to such schools. The Korean government has failed to demonstrate similar initiatives up to now. The lack of assistance or subsidies, restrictive tax rules, high costs of settling up facilities and operation – contribute to the minimum level of financial flexibility (for schools) to meet the demands made by the foreign population.
Uncle Sam has been pushing this to Korea, not Koreans.
In terms of taxpayer money: I was once Principal of _______Foreign School. We struck a deal with the city to finance the building of a new school back in 2001.
This was municipal and federal taxpayer dollars used to erect our new building. Previously we had been in a cramped rented space and our population was outgrowing it. The penny pinching owner (a US citizen) did not want to move to a bigger site and “rent” more space. So, we got the city of ______ (a place everyone loves to go to the beach) to find a site near the beach, and pay for our new school building to provide services to the foreign worker families in a 50 mile radius via our bus service. That was our hook. The city swallowed. We had an enrollment of 170 or so, K-12.
The deal then and still is, a foreign passport holder parent, child with a foreign passport, or the family 5 years out of the county allows admission.
The rationale is these students will not complete their studies in Korea. Hence, they will not be involved in the exam/progression to magnet schools.
Currently I’m the Director of a “real” immersion school in Seoul. We all know Korea loves buzz words and phrases, so much of what you may hear being labeled as “foreign” “international” “immersion” is in name only. These are private schools that are magnet schools with special charters and must have a lottery due to their role as as a “neighborhood” school for 50% of the incoming 1st class each year. The process is very much like what we do in the USA. Since we “serve” part of the public population as a neighborhood school with a charter for special purposes, we receive government funding.
Same as USA charter or magnet school. In California, there are charter Korean and Chinese schools. Local parents love it because their anglo kids get exposure to an Asian language and understand more of the culture in their elementary school.
As for the comments about language in the schools being subpar, in true international schools there should be an ESL track, a “sheltered ESL” component, a “transitional component, and a mainstream integration.
For the ignorant who blame Koreans for this, foreigners are the Directors, Principals, Curriculum Coordinators, and teachers in these programs, not Koreans.
You don’t know what you are talking about.
Every “foreign” school should have a mission statement and goals for the student population. Since they are licenced as “foreign” schools, the Ministry of Education does not hold them accountable to follow the Korean curriculum and entrusts the “qualified” foreigners to do it; so, as Principal of___ school my VISA was E7, “specialist” in an area, not teacher or professor.
As far as the number of students in the schools who are ethnically Korean, what does it matter? If the Directors, Principals and Coordinators know they have jobs to do and if they who cannot solve the issues, they are to blame, not the government.
If I live in a foreign country and want my child to attend an English speaking, curriculum driven school, it is my responsibility to demand more if I feel the curriculum is not adequate. Also, I must accept being in a country with slanty eyes and kimchi and demand there is an adequate ESL/sheltered ESL program so my children don’t get taught down.
Lastly, a point many may not know, is the reason why there are so few middle and secondary “foreign/international” schools is graduates cannot attend Korean Universities (or high schools) having come from a Korean foreign school because they did not follow the prescribed Korean curriculum.
Many make grand generalizations on blog sites like they really know what they are talking about. There is some real misinformation about this issue that bloggers will hopefully inform themselves on if they post. I can’t believe I vested an hour of my Sat. night, but I hoped I helped someone, or pissed someone off.
Oh yeah, my kids are not slanty eyed, and one likes some kimchi.
Define “affordable” in terms of a tuition amount or range. The average remuneration package of a foreign school teacher is about $40,000 – $50,000. Whereas in the US, the largest school budget expenditure is personnel, in Seoul, land use probably costs more than the salaries of the entire school staff.
Affordable would be about W200,000 a month.
Not strict enough if the aim to reserve spaces for children from non-Korean-speaking homes. SFS requires at least one parent to hold a foreign passport, too. While there are K-A Mikes with K-A kids, a fair number of ethnic Korean US passport holders living in Korea have spent a significant length of time in Korea, are proficient and literate in Korean and thus, able to learn in a Korean school, unlike children from non-Korean-speaking homes. Nevertheless, any private school is free to set its own lawful admission policies, and if international schools choose to admit Korean permanent residents with foreign passports, that is their right.
I am sympathetic to foreigners like Dokdoforever with non-Korean-speaking kids. Kids do pick up basic oral proficiency easily but lack the extensive vocabulary to learn new content in the target language. a former colleague used to teach in LA’s Korean-English dual immersion program. She told me that after a few years, the non-Korean children couldn’t keep up because 2-3 hours of school instruction in Korean wasn’t enough to build up their vocabulary sufficiently whereas the Korean kids got additional Korean at home and additional English in public or through television. Morever, the Korean kids’ parents were able to help them with their homework. Parental support at home through reading and appropriate homework assistance is critical to academic success.
You’re joking. W200,000 a month x ten months x 20 kids = W40,000,000, or the equivalent of the classroom teacher’s salary.
Why are you concerned about costs in a government controlled system?
What is the cost for a Korean?
What do Korean parents pay for their children to go to public schools in Korea? Can a foreigner send their child to a public school in Korea? Can a fifteen-year old foreign English speaking student enter the ROK and attend a Korean public middle school? Is the private English-only school necessary or an alternative?
Legally a foreigner can enroll in a public school, but there are very few schools with enough foreign students to justify offering language support programs. In fact, offhand I recall reading about only one elementary school in Seoul. A foreign student not proficient in Korean isn’t going to learn subjects taught in Korean. The older a student is, the more time needed to become proficient in the target language. A foreign child who enrolls in a Korean kindergarten will do fine. A first or second grader will catch up if the parents provide native language literacy instruction at home. A third grader would probably need at least two years of immersion to achieve proficiency, and during that time, the parents would need to provide not only literacy but math, science, and social studies instruction in the native language at home so that the child does not fall behind. If the family intends to live in Korea for many years, then two years of immersion will pay off. If the family expects to spend only a few years in Korea, then they might as well homeschool the child.
I was acquainted with Dwight and Sonia Strawn, who raised two daughters in Korea and had them educated in Korean private schools. Except for a couple of prejudiced parents who didn’t want their children playing with foreigners, the girls’ experiences were positive, and they speak Korean like natives. In the eleventh grade, the girls transferred to SFS to prepare to enter US universities.
BigMike — You write pretty poorly for a supposed educator, and even though you use the word “satire” you seem to have missed the point on my satirical proposal to bar slanty-eyed people from attending foreign schools with the children of us worthies. I’d have to give you a “Fail”.
Big Mike ….. please, go back to school. Poor grammar and sentence structure aside, you are simply too lousy a communicator to be in charge of a faculty of educators. Have you EVER written an essay at any stage of your education? Good thing E7′s are renewable yearly – it means there’s hope a qualified replacement will soon be found to rescue those young minds’ learning environment from your bumbling ineptitude.
Two more cents, if you will.
Since the inevitability of the Royal, Rich Koreans (and diplomats) getting their kids into international schools seems to be a given, maybe the only proper response is to Nazify the English ability requirements. Let in your tired, your rich, your huddled masses. Even if they’re Moroccan! Even if they’re French! :p
And then, level-test like nobody’s business to make sure that language ability is at the fore in placements.
If Sammy Davis Kim Jr.s parents are told that, while he’s at the 8th grade level academically overall, but that his language ability puts him in the 6th grade class, and that he will be therefore placed into the latter…..
Then, the onus is on the Kyongju Kims of the world to decide how to play it. Either way, the darling daughter of Jeffrey Jones is in a class that doesn’t get all slowed up by the “I’m fine and how are you” set.
In theory. In practice, those of you who live in Korea, and grab at the pathetic scraps thrown your way educationally by the gov’t in Seoul….
Will be blogging bitterly on this same topic, these same problems, in 10 or 20 years. Call me pessimistic…call me bitter. Oh, do.
If , by the way, “Nazify” is not a word….it should be.
I’m not even going to get involved in bashing ‘self important’ Mike for his ‘contribution.’
I do believe, though that including students that are ‘ethically Korean’(as he puts it) can’t help but affect the quality of English used in the school, regardless of whether the ‘Directors, Principals, Curriculum Coordinators and teachers’ are western or not. ESL programs for immigrant kids in the states are run by Americans, after all, and nobody claims that those kids can speak English like native speakers. And I don’t think that foreign parents are going to get very far in pressuring the schools to change their curriculum to meet the needs of foreign kids, since non-Korean speaking foreign kids at most international schools outside of SFS are a very small minority.
My main point is that there needs to be at least one school in the country that caters to honest to goodness, real middle class foreigners and their kids. If there aren’t enough foreign kids for some reason, then Koreans able to pass an English language proficiency test could be allowed in, but if there were actually an affordable international school catering to foreign kids, I’d doubt there’d be many extra openings.
Sonagi seems to be arguing that regardless of demand,high land costs in Seoul would make private international school tuition unaffordable for most middle class foreigners. Sounds reasonable, except that tuition at international schools in Hong Kong is lower than in Seoul, even with Hong Kong’s higher land prices and higher wages. A little action on the part of the Korean government could easily solve this problem.
Did the ROK ever create the “English Village”? Can foreigners attend school there?
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