title: Education in South Korea

text: Competitive entrance examinations at the middle-school level were abolished in 1968. Although as of the late 1980s, students still had to pass noncompetitive qualifying examinations, they were assigned to secondary institutions by lottery, or else by location within the boundary of the school district. Secondary schools, formerly ranked according to the quality of their students, have been equalized, with a portion of good, mediocre, and poor students being assigned to each one. The reform, however, did not equalize secondary schools completely. In Seoul, students who performed well in qualifying examinations were allowed to attend better quality schools in a "common" district, while other students attended schools in one of five geographical districts. The reforms applied equally to public and private schools whose enrollments were strictly controlled by the Ministry of Education.


title: Education in South Korea

text: In South Korea, the grade of a student is reset as the student progresses through elementary, middle and high school. To differentiate the grades between students, one would often state the grade based on the level of education he/she is in. For example, a student in the first year of middle school would be referred to as "First grade in Middle School (중학교 1학년.)".


title: Education in South Korea

text: Middle schools are called "Jung hakgyo" (중학교) in Korean, which literally means "middle school". High schools are called "Godeung hakgyo" (고등학교) in Korean, literally meaning "high school".


title: Education in South Korea

text: Middle schools in South Korea consist of three grades. Most students enter at age 12 and graduate at age 14 or 15. These three grades correspond roughly to grades 7–9 in the North American system and Years 8–10 in the English and Welsh system.


title: Education in South Korea

text: Middle school in South Korea marks a considerable shift from primary school, with students expected to take their studies much more seriously. At most middle schools, there used to be many rules on uniforms and haircuts, although now only uniforms remain partially enforced, and education stress is highly increased. Like in primary school, students spend most of the day in the same homeroom classroom with the same classmates; however, students have different teachers for each subject. Teachers move around from classroom to classroom, and few teachers apart from those who teach special subjects have their own rooms to which students come. Homeroom teachers (담임 교사, RR: "damim gyosa") play a very important role in students' lives.


title: Education in South Korea

text: Most middle school students take seven lessons a day, and in addition to this usually have an early morning block that precedes regular lessons and an eighth lesson specializing in an extra subject to finish the day. Unlike high school, middle school curricula do not vary much from school to school. Korean, Algebra, Geometry, English, social studies, and science form the core subjects, with students also receiving instruction in music, art, PE, Korean history, ethics, home economics, secondary language, technology, and Hanja. Which subjects students study and to what extent may change from year to year. All regular lessons are 45 minutes long. Before school, students have an extra block of 30 minutes or longer that may be used for self-study, watching Educational Broadcast System (EBS) broadcasts, or for personal or class administration. Beginning in 2008, students attended school Monday through Friday, and had a half-day every 1st, 3rd, and 5th (calendar permitting) Saturday of the month. Saturday lessons usually included Club Activity (CA) lessons, where students could participate in extracurricular activities. Unfortunately, many schools have regular classes without extracurricular activities because schools and parents want students to study more. Despite this, from 2012 onwards, primary and secondary schools, including middle schools, now do not hold Saturday classes. To this day, many schools still hold Saturday classes illegally because the parents want their children to go to school and study.


title: Education in South Korea

text: In 1969, the government abolished entrance examinations for middle school students, replacing it with a system whereby primary school students within the same district are selected for middle schools by a lottery system. This has the effect of equalizing the quality of students from school to school, though schools in areas where students come from more privileged backgrounds still tend to outperform schools in poorer areas. Until recently, most middle schools have been same-sex, though in the past decade most new middle schools have been coed, and some previously same-sex schools have converted to coed as well. Some schools have converted to same-sex due to pressure from parents who thought that their children would study better in single-sex education.


title: Education in South Korea

text: As with primary schools, students pass from grade to grade regardless of knowledge or academic achievement, the result being that classes often have students of vastly different abilities learning the same subject material together. In the final year of middle school examination scores become very important for top students hoping to gain entrance into top high schools, and for those in the middle hoping to get into an academic rather than a technical or vocational high school. Otherwise, examinations and marks only matter insofar as living up to a self-enforced concept of position in the school ranking system. There are some standardized examinations for certain subjects, and teachers of academic subjects are expected to follow approved textbooks, but generally middle school teachers have more flexibility over curricula and methods than teachers in high school.


title: Education in South Korea

text: More than 95% of middle school students also attend privately run, for-profit, after-school tutoring agencies known as "hagwon" (학원), or "cram schools", in order to receive extra instruction from private tutors. The core subjects, especially the cumulative subjects of Korean, English, and math, receive the most emphasis. Some "hagwon" specialize in just one subject, while others offer all core subjects, constituting a second round of schooling every day for their pupils. Indeed, some parents place more stress on their children's "hagwon" studies than their public school studies. Additionally, many students attend academies for things such as martial arts or music. Thus, many middle school students, like their high school counterparts, return from a day of schooling well after sunset. The average South Korean family spends 20% percent of its income on after-hours cram schools, more spending per capita on private tutoring than any other country.


title: Education in South Korea

text: High schools in South Korea teach students for three years, from first grade (age 15–16) to third grade (age 17–18), and students commonly graduate at age 17 or 18. High school students are commonly expected to study increasingly long hours each year moving toward graduation, to become competitive and enter extremely attractive universities in Korea. Many high school students wake and leave home in the morning at 5am. When the school is over at 4pm, they usually go to a studying room in the school or to a library to study instead of going home. This is called "yaja", which literally means "evening self-study". They do not need to go home to eat dinner since most schools provide paid dinner for students. After finishing yaja (which usually ends at 11:00 pm, but later than 12:00 am at some schools), they return home after studying, then usually return to specialty study schools ("hagwon") often until 3am, from Monday to Friday. In addition, they often study on weekends.


title: Education in South Korea

text: The yaja (야자, 야간자율학습, night self study) had not been truly "self" study for more than 30 years; all high school students were forced to do it. From the 2010s, the Ministry of Education has encouraged high schools to free students of yaja and to allow them to do it whenever they want. Many standard public high schools near Seoul are now no longer forcing students do it. But private high schools, special-purpose high schools (such as science high schools and foreign language high schools), or normal schools far from Seoul are still forcing students to do yaja.


title: Education in South Korea

text: A common saying in Korea is: "If you sleep three hours each night, you may get into a top 'SKY university' (Seoul National University, Korea University, and Yonsei University). If you sleep four hours each night, you may get into another university. If you sleep five or more hours each night, especially in your last year of high school, forget about getting into any university." Accordingly, many high school students in their final year do not have any free time for holidays, birthdays or vacations before the CSATs (College Scholastic Ability Test, Korean: 수능, Suneung), which are university entrance exams held by the Ministry of Education. Surprisingly, some high school students are offered chances to travel with family to enjoy fun and relaxing vacations, but these offers are often refused on the first suggestion by the students themselves, and increasingly on later additional trips if any, due to peer influences and a fear of "falling behind" in classes. Many high school students seem to prefer staying with friends and studying, rather than taking a break. Truancy is extremely rare in Korea. Rebellious students will often stay in class and use smartphones connected to the internet to chat with friends behind the teacher's back during classes, which usually get them in trouble if caught.


title: Education in South Korea

text: High schools in Korea can be divided into specialty tracks that accord with a student's interest and career path or a normal state high school. For special high schools, there are science (Science high school), foreign language, international, and art specialty high schools that students can attend by passing entrance examinations which are generally highly competitive. These schools are called special-purpose high schools. Autonomous private high schools are relatively free of the policy of the Ministry of Education. Also, there are schools for gifted students. Tuition of many special-purpose high schools, autonomous private high schools, and schools for gifted students are extremely expensive (the average of tuition of special-purpose or autonomous private high school is US$5,614 per year.) One of the schools for gifted students is US$7,858 per year. There are a few schools that require more than what is calculated as an average. CheongShim International Academy, Hankuk Academy of Foreign Studies, Korean Minjok Leadership Academy, and Hana Academy Seoul are infamous for their expensive tuition. Simultaneously, these schools are known for students' high academic achievement and college results, sending more than 50% of their students to "SKY universities" yearly. Other types of high schools include standard public high schools and standard private high schools, both with or without entrance examinations. These high schools do not specialize in a particular field but are more focused on sending their students to top and popular colleges.


title: Education in South Korea

text: However, since the emergence of special-purpose, autonomous private schools, international schools, and schools for gifted students, standard high schools struggle to send students to "top and popular" universities. Standard high schools generally cannot compete with specialized schools' infrastructures, teaching resources, and activities that improve students' school records. As such, for a student at a standard high school, it is difficult to enter "SKY". Excellent students and their parents therefore avoid entering into standard high schools. Only students whose grades are too low to enter vocational school (or whose grades are simply average) enter normal high schools. This continues to discourage excellent students from attending normal high schools because the academic level of students is low. This vicious cycle turned standard schools into "slums" in the public eye. As a result, the admissions committees of top universities tend to reject students from standard schools; there is a preference to admit students from special-purpose, autonomous private schools, international schools, and schools for gifted students. This has made the competition of entering such high schools as difficult as entering top universities.


title: Education in South Korea

text: The Korean government has tried to crack down on such damaging study habits in order to allow a more balanced system, mostly by fining many privately run specialty study institutes ("hakwon") for running classes as late as 12am. To solve this problem, the Korean government made a law that bans "hakwon"s from running classes after 10:00 PM, which is often not conformed to.


title: Education in South Korea

text: The standard government-issued school curriculum is often noted as rigorous, with as many as 16 or so subjects. Most students choose to also attend "hakwon" to boost their academic performance. Core subjects include Korean, English and mathematics, with adequate emphasis on social and physical science subjects. Students do not typically ask questions in the classroom, but prefer to memorize details. As memorization is an out-dated and ineffective means of true mastery of a subject, compared against contemporary education standards focusing on global comprehension, application, and critical thinking, the vast majority of South Korean students transferring to a modernized education system of a highly developed country almost exclusively are found to be far behind their peers with poor ability for independent determination or complete concept understanding and synthesis . World-wide South Korean graduates are some of the least sought for Western university recruitment or career recruitment as they consistently fail to demonstrate logical and critical thinking and application skills. It is critical to note that the type and level of subjects may differ from school to school, depending on the degree of selectivity and specialization of the school . Specialty, optional, expensive, study schools help students memorize questions and answers from previous years' CAT tests and universities' interview questions.


title: Education in South Korea

text: High school is not mandatory, unlike middle school education in Korea. However, according to a 2005 study of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member countries, some 97% of South Korea's young adults do complete high school. This was the highest percentage recorded in any country. However, this is mainly due to the fact that there is no such thing as a failing grade in Korea, and most graduate as long as they attend school a certain number of days. This system of graduation solely based on attendance further devalues a South Korean student when being evaluated for university admission in Western countries, especially as many are phasing out entrance examinations.


title: Education in South Korea

text: South Korean views on high-school selection and perceived elitism of certain schools are contrary to most Western educational systems which rigorously focus on academics, but also place a high value on diversity of the student body in a variety of aspects to maximize student exposure to differing perspectives and experiences while achieving sophisticated understanding and socialization. As it stands, the Korean secondary system of education is highly successful at preparing students for teacher-centric education, in which teachers directly communicate information to students. However, this does not hold true for classroom environments where students are expected to take on self-reliant roles wherein, for the most part, active and creative personalities seem to lead to success. Similarly, scientific studies continue to demonstrate that rote memorization, as is central in South Korean education, is not indicative of intelligence and is of deeply declining value in the Information Age.


title: Education in South Korea

text: It is becoming increasingly evident that active student use of the English language in Korean high schools is necessary to enter top universities in Korea, as well as abroad.


title: Education in South Korea

text: South Korea had a strong vocational education system that shattered due to the Korean War and the economic collapse following the war. The vocational education system was thereafter rebuilt. For students not desiring to enter university, vocational high schools specializing in fields such as technology, agriculture, or finance are available. Around 20 percent of high school students are in vocational high schools. In vocational high schools, students split their time equally between general courses and vocational courses. General education teaches academic core courses such as Korean, mathematics, science, and social studies while vocational training offers courses related to agriculture, technology, industry, commerce, home economics, fishing, and oceanography. Agriculture, fishery, and oceanography high schools have been set up in rural areas and harbor cities to combat the shortage of labor due to urban sprawl. Agricultural high schools focus on scientific farming and are designed to produce skilled experts in agriculture while fishery and oceanography high schools utilize maritime resource to focus on navigation technology. Since the 1980s, vocational high schools have offered training in various fields to create a labor force that can adjust to the changes across South Korean industry and society. Due to needs of manpower across the heavy and chemical industries in the 1970s, the need for vocational education was crucial. By the 1980s, due to the great changes in technology, the objective of vocational education shifted to create a supply of well-trained technicians. When students graduate from vocational high school, the students receive a vocational high school diploma and may choose to enter the workforce or go on to higher education. Many vocational high school graduates go on to attend junior colleges to further their education.


title: Education in South Korea

text: As the university degree grew in prominence to employers during the 1970s and 1980s, the shift toward a more knowledge-based, rather than an industrial economy, resulted in vocational education being devalued in favor of the university when viewed by many young South Koreans and their parents. In the 1970s and 1980s, vocational education in South Korea was less than socially acceptable, yet also a pathway to succeed in obtaining a steady career with a decent income and an opportunity to elevate socioeconomic status. Even with the many positive attributes of vocational education, many vocational graduates were scorned and stigmatized by their college educated managers despite the importance of their skills for economic development.


title: Education in South Korea

text: With South Korea's high university entrance rate, the perception of vocational education still remains in doubt in the minds of many South Koreans. In 2013, only 18 percent of students were enrolled in vocational education programs. Lower enrollment continues, due largely to the perceived prestige of attending university. Additionally, only affluent families are able to afford the tutoring that many feel is required for students to pass the notoriously difficult college entrance exam. A student with low scores on the college entrance exam usually forecloses their possibility of attending university. With the pervasive bias against vocational education, vocational students are labeled as "underachievers", are viewed as lacking a formal higher educational background, and are often looked down upon as vocational jobs are known in Korea as the "3Ds" dirty, demeaning, and dangerous. In response, the South Korean government increased the admissions to universities. Soon after, the rate of university enrollment was 68.2 percent, an increase of 15 percent over 2014. To boost the positive image of vocational education and training, the South Korean government has been collaborating with countries such as Germany, Switzerland, and Austria to examine the innovative solutions that are being implemented to improve vocational education, training, and career options for young South Koreans as alternative to the traditional university path. Many of the most developed cultures and economies view South Korea's negative bias towards vocational education and careers as backwards, often joking that South Korea will develop many great inventions, with no one to build them, and no one to service them. The same societies also perceive South Korea's obsession with individual educational attainment and the perceived prestige as an example of one of the many short-comings of the South Korean education system: logic and historical experience teach that such self and narrow minded focus leaves collective society to suffer.


title: Education in South Korea

text: According to a 2012 research report from The McKinsey Global Institute the lifetime value of a college graduate's improved earnings no longer justifies the expense required to obtain the degree. Also highlighted in the report was the need for more vocational education to counteract the human cost of performance pressure and the high unemployment rate among the country's university-educated youth. The South Korean government, schools, and industry with assistance from the Swiss government and industry are now redesigning and modernizing the country's once strong vocational education sector with a network of vocational schools called "Meister Schools". The purpose of the Meister schools is to reduce the country's shortage of vocational occupations such as auto mechanics, plumbers, welders, boilermakers, electricians, carpenters, millwrights, machinists and machine operators as many of these positions go unfilled. Meister schools have been developed to revamp South Korea's vocational education system to be specifically designed to prepare youths to work in high-skilled trades and high-skilled manufacturing jobs and other fields. The schools are based on the German-style Meister schools, to teach youngsters to become masters of a skilled trade. Meister schools were set up to tackle the nations high youth unemployment rate as millions of young South Korean university graduates remain idle instead of taking up a trade while managers of small and medium businesses complain of skilled trade shortages. Many of Meister schools offer a wide range of skilled trades and technical disciplines that offer near guarantee of employment to graduates with an industry-supported curriculum design, and focus on developing skills required by various trades. The government of South Korea has taken initiatives to improve the perception of vocational training and combat the negative stigma attached to skilled manual labour and technical work. In addition, vocational streams have been integrated with academic streams to allow a seamless transition to university in order to allow further advancement if a young South Korean chooses to pursue a university degree. Meister schools offer apprenticeship-based training which takes place at vocational high schools, community and junior colleges. Meister schools also offer employment support systems for specialized Meister high school students. The South Korean government has established an "Employment First, College Later" philosophy wherein after graduation students are encouraged to seek employment first before making plans for university. With changing demands in the Information Age workforce, global forecasts show that by 2030, the demand for vocational skills will increase in contrast to the declining demand for unskilled labor largely due to technological advances.


title: Education in South Korea

text: Negative perception and stigmatization of vocational education continues to be one of the largest challenges in South Korea. The government is encouraging younger students to visit and see various vocational programs for themselves firsthand to change their perception. Those in doubt of the quality of vocational education are encouraged to spend time working in industry during school vacations so they are up-to-date on current industry practices. Experts also encourage students and their parents to rethink their negative view of vocational trades by drawing attention to Western and other highly developed nations and the irreplaceable, foundational, and vital role vocational trades are highly recognized and honored for in these super-power economies. Meister schools are continuing to be proven a good influence in changing the opinion of vocational education, yet only 15,213 (5 percent) of high school students are enrolled in Meister schools. This is due to lack of demand for Meister school admission, despite a 100 percent employment rate after graduation. Meister students instead are using these schools as an alternative path to university. If a student works in industry for three years after graduating Meister school, they are exempt from the extremely difficult university entrance exam. Nonetheless, the perception of vocational education is changing and slowly increasing in popularity as participating students are working in highly technical, vital careers and learning real skills that are highly valued in the current marketplace, oftentimes earning more annually than their university educated peers. Vocation and Meister school graduates have been swamped with job offers in an otherwise slow economy. The initiative of Meister schools has also helped youth secure jobs at conglomerates such as Samsung over candidates who graduated from elite universities. South Korea has also streamlined its small and medium-sized business sector along German lines to ease dependence on the large conglomerates ever since it began introducing Meister schools into its education system.


title: Education in South Korea

text: In spite of the country's high unemployment rate during the Great Recession, Meister school graduates have been successful in navigating the workforce as they possess relevant and highly sought after skill sets that are in high demand and minuscule supply in the South Korean economy. Graduates of Meister high schools have been successful in the job market and are flooded with full salary career offers from top companies. Boosting employment for young people through high quality vocational education has become a top priority for the Park administration, since youth unemployment is roughly three times higher than average. Graduates from vocational high schools have been successful in navigating through South Korea's highly competitive and sluggish job market. Many graduates both quantitatively and qualitatively have found more employment opportunities in a number of industry sectors across the South Korean economy. Despite promising employment prospects and good pay offered by vocational education that rival incomes of many university graduates, negative social attitudes and prejudice towards tradespeople continues despite strong evidence of the short and long-term superiority of a career in a vocational skilled-trade. Many have voiced concerns about documented discrimination against graduates with vocational education backgrounds, a long-standing tendency of South Korean employers. The negative social stigma associated with vocational careers and not having a university degree also remains deep rooted in South Korean society. Many South Koreans still have the enduring belief that a university degree from a prestigious university is the only path to a successful career, as much of South Korean society still perceives vocational schools as institutes for students who weren't smart enough to get into university. These negative perceptions of vocational trades and graduates hamper South Korea's full participation and relevance in the global economy and society in many ways: by negatively impacting and limiting South Korea's innovation and development, by hampering the design, building, and maintenance of vital infrastructure, and by damaging the perception of South Korean society due to their illogical contrarian views of the societal and personal value of a vocational education, as well as their continued adherence to an outdated class-based societal structure. The skills acquired from vocational schools gives students many practical skills and experiences. As more vocational schools take hold, more young South Koreans are joining their world-wide peers in realizing that employing their interests and abilities in educational pursuits far outweighs the importance of the names of the schools and majors.


title: Education in South Korea

text: Higher education in South Korea is provided primarily by universities (national research universities, industrial universities, teacher-training universities, broadcast and correspondence universities, cyber universities, graduate schools, open universities, and national universities of education) and colleges (cyber colleges, technical colleges, colleges in company, graduate school colleges) and various other research institutions. The South Korean higher education system is modeled after the United States with colleges (namely junior colleges and community colleges) awarding apprenticeships, licenses, citations, certificates, associate degrees or diplomas while universities award bachelor's, master's, professional, and doctoral degrees.


title: Education in South Korea

text: The history of higher education in South Korea traces its roots back the 4th century AD, starting with the founding of Daehak (National Confucian Academy) in the Goguryeo kingdom in 372. Modern higher education traces its roots in the late 19th century, as missionary schools would introduce subjects taught in the Western World and vocational schools was crucial for the development of a modern society. The development of higher education was influenced since ancient times. During the era of King So-Su-Rim in the kingdom of Goguryeo, Tae-Hak, the national university, taught the study of Confucianism, literature and martial arts. In 551, Silla which was one of three kingdoms including Goguryeo founded Guk-Hak and taught cheirospasm. It also founded vocational education that taught astronomy and medicine. Goryeo continued Silla's program of study. Seong-gyun-gwan in the Chosun Dynasty period was a higher education institute of Confucianism and for government officials.


title: Education in South Korea

text: Today there are colleges and universities whose courses of study extend from 4 to 6 years. In addition, there are vocational colleges, industrial universities, open universities and universities of technology. There are day and evening classes, classes during vacation and remote education classes. The number of institutes of higher education varied consistently from 419 in 2005, to 405 in 2008, to 411 in 2010.


title: Education in South Korea

text: Private universities account for 87.3% of total higher educational institutions. Industrial universities account for 63.6% and vocational universities account for 93.8%. These are much higher than the percentage of public institutes.


title: Education in South Korea

text: University is the traditional route pursued by South Korean students as it is by far the most prestigious form of higher education in South Korea. In 2004, nearly 90 percent of general high school graduates achieved university entrance. In 2017, over 68.9% of South Korean high school graduates advanced to a university. Competition for university spots is fierce as many students vie for the most coveted spots at the country's most prestigious universities, many of which are key national research universities offering bachelor's, master's, professional and doctoral degrees. The three most recognized universities in South Korea, known as "SKY" are Seoul National University, Korea University, and Yonsei University. Other well known universities that have an international reputation in South Korea include Sogang University, Sungkyunkwan University, Hanyang University Pohang University of Science and Technology, and the research-intensive Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.


title: Education in South Korea

text: Unlike the usage of grade point averages and percentages used in countries like the United States and Canada as a yardstick for eligibility, entrance to South Korean universities is based largely on the scores that students achieved on the CSAT, which accounts for 60 percent of the admission criteria while the remaining 40 percent is dependent on grades from comprehensive high school records. In addition to the CSAT scores, universities also take volunteer experience, extra-curricular activities, letters of recommendation, school awards, portfolios into consideration when assessing a prospective applicant.


title: Education in South Korea

text: Bachelor's degree's in South Korea are offered by universities such as four-year colleges and universities, industrial universities, national universities of education, the Korean National Open University, technical colleges and cyber universities. Bachelor's degrees typically take four years to complete while some degrees related to medicine, law, and dentistry can take up to six years. Students typically major in one or two fields of study in addition to a minor. A bachelor's degree requires up to 130 to 140 credit hours to complete. After all course requirements are met, the student receives a bachelor's degree upon graduation.


title: Education in South Korea

text: Master's degrees are offered by four-year colleges and universities, independent institutions affiliated with a four-year college or university, universities of education or the Korean National Open University. In order to gain acceptance into a master's degree program, the applicant must hold a bachelor's degree with a GPA of 3.0 (B) or greater from a recognized institution, submit two recommendation letters from professors, and an undergraduate record showing their GPA. Qualifying examinations must also be taken in addition to an interview. Master's programs have 24 credit hours of coursework in addition to a thesis that is generally has to be completed within two years. In a master's degree program, the student must achieve a GPA of 3.0 (B) or higher, pass a comprehensive examination as well as a foreign language examination, as well as completing and defending a master's thesis in order to graduate. Upon successful completion of a master's program, the student receives a master's degree.


title: Education in South Korea

text: In order to gain acceptance into a doctoral program, an applicant must hold a master's degree, have a research background related to their field of study, as well as have professor recommendations. Doctorate programs are sometimes administered in conjunction with master's programs with the student needing to complete 60 credit hours in conjunction with the master's degree, with a final GPA of 3.0 (B) or higher which takes up to four years to complete. Doctoral students must also pass a comprehensive examination, two foreign language examinations, as well as completing and defending a doctoral dissertation in order to graduate. When successfully completed, the student receives a Doctoral Degree.


title: Education in South Korea

text: Though South Korean society places a far greater emphasis on university rather than vocational education, vocational schools remain as another option for those who choose not to go take the traditional route of going to university. Negative social attitudes and prejudice towards tradespeople, technicians, and vocational school graduates are stigmatized, treated unfairly and are still looked down upon as the negative social stigma associated with vocational careers and not having a university degree continues to remain deep rooted in South Korean society. Vocational education is offered by industrial universities, junior colleges, open universities, and miscellaneous institutions.


title: Education in South Korea

text: Industrial universities in South Korea are also known as polytechnics. These institutions were established in 1982 as an alternative route to higher education for people already in the workforce. Industrial universities offer both diplomas and bachelor's degrees.


title: Education in South Korea

text: Junior colleges, also known as junior vocational colleges offer professional certifications in trades or technical careers and programs related to the liberal arts, early childhood education, home economics, business administration, technology, engineering, agriculture, fisheries, radiation, clinical pathology, navigation, and nursing. Most of the programs take two to three years to finish. Many of the predecessors of junior colleges were vocational high schools established in the 1960s to train mid-level technicians. Admission criteria to a junior college is the same as a four-year university though it is less competitive. 50 percent of the admission quotas are reserved for graduates of vocational high schools or applicants with national technological qualifications. When successfully completed, junior college graduates are awarded a diploma or an associate degree.


title: Education in South Korea

text: Junior college graduates may choose to enter the workforce or transfer to a four-year university to further their studies.


title: Education in South Korea

text: Highly specialized programs are offered by miscellaneous institutions which grant two-year diplomas or four-year bachelor's degrees.


title: Education in South Korea

text: Due to the low birth rates in South Korea, there is a decline of the number of students attending secondary schools. To combat this declining trend, South Korea has looked to foreigners to fill the empty slots using a national strategy. By the year of 2023, they hoped to increase their numbers of foreign students' times three, but their number of foreign students declined from 89,537 students to about 5,000 fewer than before. This is due to the competition within the job market and foreigners finding it hard to compete with Koreans who are so highly educated. Even with this decline in foreign students attending Korean schools, it is the more attractive option than other countries whose prices are much higher. Some universities in South Korea offer discounts up to 50% off for foreigners to attend, and they are continuing to add more benefits to reach their goal of over 200,000 students (Krechetnikov, 2016).


title: Education in South Korea

text: With over 20 cyber-universities in South Korea, it makes it simple for foreigners to access knowledge and education from another country that is not their own. It also makes it easy for working citizens and foreigners to do their jobs and earn at education at the same time (Krechetnikov, 2016).


title: Education in South Korea

text: The main reasons that foreigners often seek an education in Korea is to obtain either a masters or a bachelor's degree at a cheaper price with potentially higher quality. However, South Korea is expanding what foreigners can achieve. Students from all around the world are now able to pursue doctorate degrees in multiple fields within the Korean education system. Although the number of fields for which foreign students can pursue a doctorate in is still limited to a few, South Korea is ramping up in its expansion. Some of the most popular fields of study in South Korea for foreign students is technology, computer programing, and Web design to name a few (Krechetnikov, 2016).


title: Education in South Korea

text: Scholarships and academic grants allow foreign students to pay their college tuition on their own without any extra financial help. Currently, South Korea has students attending their universities from just about anywhere in the world (Krechetnikov, 2016).


title: Education in South Korea

text: The Ministry of Education has been responsible for South Korean education since 25 February 2013. Its name was The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (often abbreviated into "the Ministry of Education") since 25 February 2008 to 24 February 2013. The former body, the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development, was named by the former Minister of Education, who enhanced its function in 2001 because the administration of Kim Dae-jung considered education and human resources development as a matter of the highest priority. As a result of the reform, it began to cover the whole field of human resource development and the minister of education was appointed to the Vice Prime Minister. In 2008, the name was changed into the present one after the Lee Myeong Bak administration annexed the former Ministry of Science and Technology to the Education ministry.


title: Education in South Korea

text: Like other ministers, the Minister of Education, Science and Technology is appointed by the president. They are mainly chosen from candidates who have an academic background and often resign in a fairly short term (around one year).


title: Education in South Korea

text: Although primary- and secondary-school teachers traditionally enjoyed high status, they often were overworked and underpaid during the late 1980s. Salaries were less than those for many other white-collar professions and even some blue-collar jobs. High school teachers, particularly those in the cities, however, received sizable gifts from parents seeking attention for their children, but teaching hours were long and classes crowded (the average class contained around fifty to sixty students).


title: Education in South Korea

text: In May 1989, teachers established an independent union, the Korean Teachers Union (KTU — 전국교직원노동조합(전교조), "Jeongyojo"). Their aims included improving working conditions and reforming a school system that they regarded as overly controlled by the Ministry of Education. Although the government promised large increases in allocations for teachers' salaries and facilities, it refused to give the union legal status. Because teachers were civil servants, the government claimed they did not have the right to strike and, even if they did have the right to strike, unionization would undermine the status of teachers as "role models" for young Koreans. The government also accused the union of spreading subversive, leftist propaganda that was sympathetic to the communist regime in North Korea.


title: Education in South Korea

text: According to a report in "The Wall Street Journal Asia", the union claimed support from 82 percent of all teachers. The controversy was viewed as representing a major crisis for South Korean education because a large number of teachers (1,500 by November 1989) had been dismissed, violence among union supporters, opponents, and police had occurred at several locations, and class disruptions had caused anxieties for families of students preparing for the college entrance examinations. The union's challenge to the Ministry of Education's control of the system and the charges of subversion had made compromise seem a very remote possibility at the start 1990.


title: Education in South Korea

text: South Korea still has issues with North Korea after the Korean War. This has contributed to South Korea's confrontational stance against North Korea in the education field. For instance, on 7 July 2011, the National Intelligence Service was criticized for the search and seizure of a civilian think tank, Korea Higher Education Research Institution. This incident was carried out through a warrant to investigate an alleged South Korean spy who followed an instruction from North Korea with a purpose of instigating university student rallies to stop the ongoing tuition hike in South Korea.


title: Education in South Korea

text: Korea has an extensive English education history dating back to the Joseon Dynasty. During this time, Koreans received English education in public institutes, where translators were instructed for conversion of Korean into foreign languages. The Public Foreign Language School established in 1893, educated young males to perform tasks to modernize Korea. This school, unlike facilities such as Yuk Young Gong Won (1886), disregarded social statuses, welcoming more students into the institute and introducing the first Korean foreign language instructors into the field of English education.


title: Education in South Korea

text: English was also taught during the Joseon Dynasty in missionary schools, which were established to spread the word of the Christian faith to Koreans, although these schools did not equip its students with the necessary tools to read, write, comprehend and speak the language. Direct Method teaching was uncommon, as instructors were often unqualified as English teachers and the textbook was limited to the Holy Bible. During the Japanese Imperialism Period, Koreans were forced to prioritize the learning and speaking of Japanese. English was offered only as an elective course, though, the instructors were often Japanese, hindering proper English pronunciation. After the liberation of Korea from Japan in 1945, the first national curriculum was established in 1955, launching greater pursuit of English education and returning the nation to speaking its native tongue.


title: Education in South Korea

text: The relevance of early English education and globalization were brought to the attention of South Korea during the 1986 Asian Games and Seoul Olympic Games, as many came to realize the value of the English language. English is taught as a required subject from the third year of elementary school up to high school, as well as in most universities, with the goal of performing well on the TOEIC and TOEFL, which are tests of reading, listening and grammar-based English. For students who achieve high scores, there is also a speaking evaluation. Universities began lecturing in English to help improve competence and though only few were competent enough themselves to lead a class, many elementary school teachers were also recommended to teach in English.


title: Education in South Korea

text: In 1994, the university entrance examination moved away from testing grammar, towards a more communicative method. Parents redirected the focus of English education to align with exam content. English Language Education programs focus on ensuring competency to perform effectively as a nation in an era of globalization using proficiency-based language programs that allow students to learn according to their own abilities and interests and driving Koreans to focus more on oral proficiency. With the new focus placed on oral expertise, there has been an "intense desire to speak native-like English" pressuring parents to take measures to ensure the most beneficial English education.


title: Education in South Korea

text: Because of large class sizes and other factors in public schools, many parents pay to send their children to private English-language schools in the afternoon or evening. Families invest significant portions of household incomes on the education of children to include English camps and language training abroad. Usually different private English-language schools specialize in teaching elementary school students or in middle and high school students. The most ambitious parents send their children to kindergartens that utilize English exclusively in the classroom. Many children also live abroad for anywhere from a few months to several years to learn English. Sometimes, a Korean mother and her children will move to an English-speaking country for an extended period of time to enhance the children's English ability. In these cases, the father left in Korea is known as a gireogi appa (Korean: 기러기 아빠), literally a "goose dad" who must migrate to see his family.


title: Education in South Korea

text: There are more than 100,000 Korean students in the U.S. The increase of 10 percent every year helped Korea remain the top student-sending country in the U.S. for a second year, ahead of India and China. Korean students at Harvard University are the third most after Canadian and Chinese. In 2012, 154,000 South Korean students were pursuing degrees at overseas universities, with countries such as Japan, Canada, the United States, and Australia as top destinations.


title: Education in South Korea

text: Korean English classes focus on vocabulary, grammar, and reading. Academies tend to include conversation, and some offer debate and presentation.


title: Education in South Korea

text: Due to recent curriculum changes, the education system in Korea is now placing a greater emphasis on English verbal abilities rather than grammatical skills. With influence from the government, English education began to focus on the communicative competence of Korean students emphasizing fluency and comprehension through listening materials. Universities require all first year students to take an English conversation class in their first year and some universities require students to take conversational English classes throughout the entirety of their university life. According to a 2003 survey conducted by the Hong Kong-based Political and Economic Risk Consultancy, despite being one of the countries in Asia that spent the most money on English-language education, South Korea ranked the lowest among 12 Asian countries in English ability. However, in 2020, South Korea has significantly improved its English knowledge and proficiency, ranking 6th out of 25 countries in Asia, by Education First.


title: Education in South Korea

text: English as a subject discipline, that is, the study of linguistics, literature, composition/rhetoric, or pedagogy is uncommon except in top-tier or graduate programs in Korea. As a result, despite efforts to recruit foreign faculty in Korean universities, opportunities for tenure are fewer and professorial privileges and salaries are lower than for foreigners contracted to teach major disciplinary courses in English (content-based instruction). Overall, more native English speakers are being employed as educators in Korea to improve the English education process. Koreans have come to believe native English speakers are the best teachers of the language and to be proficient in the English language gives their children an advantage over others and is an "educational investment that promises surplus"(Han, 2007).


title: Education in South Korea

text: South Korea's scarcity of natural resources is often cited as a reason for the rigorousness and fierce competition of its school systems; the academic pressure on its students is arguably the largest in the world. In an article entitled "An Assault Upon Our Children", Se-Woong Koo wrote that "the system's dark side casts a long shadow. Dominated by tiger moms, cram schools and highly authoritarian teachers, South Korean education produces ranks of overachieving students who pay a stiff price in health and happiness. The entire program amounts to child abuse. It should be reformed and restructured without delay." In a response to the article, educator Diane Ravitch warned against modeling an educational system in which children "exist either to glorify the family or to build the national economy." She argued furthermore that the happiness of South Korean children has been sacrificed, and likened the country's students to "cogs in a national economic machine". A 2014 Lee Ju-ho, the minister representing the Ministry of Education & Science Technology, announced a plan on 8 February 2011, to dispatch un-hired reserve teachers overseas for extra training despite the opposition from the Korean Teachers Union and other public workers in the city-level and the provincial level.


title: Education in South Korea

text: The South Korean political system has a strong academic elitism. In June 2005, Conservative politician Jeon Yeo-ok openly opposed the nomination of the former president Roh Moo-hyun who did not graduate from a higher level institution, but passed the state-run judicial examinations.


title: Education in South Korea

text: There is an ongoing debate about academic freedom on South Korean college campuses. In 2021, sociology professor at Seoul's Yonsei University, Lew Seok-choon, was indicted and charged with three counts of defamation for his remarks in his lectures stating that the comfort women weren't taken forcefully by the Japanese military and the work was "a form of prostitution".


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: The human rights record of North Korea is often considered to be the worst in the world and has been globally condemned, with the United Nations, the European Union and groups such as Human Rights Watch all critical of the country's record. Most international human rights organizations consider North Korea to have no contemporary parallel with respect to violations of liberty.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: Western human rights groups such as Amnesty International and nations such as the United States have asserted that, in practice, there is no right to free speech, and the only media providers that are deemed legal are those operated by the government in North Korea. According to reports from Amnesty International and the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, by 2017 an estimated 200,000 prisoners were incarcerated in camps that are dedicated to political crimes, and subjected to forced labour, physical abuse, and execution.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: The North Korean government strictly monitors the activities of foreign visitors. Aid workers are subjected to considerable scrutiny and they are also excluded from places and regions which the government does not want them to enter. Since citizens cannot freely leave the country, it is mainly from stories of refugees and defectors that the nation's human rights record has been constructed. The government's position, expressed through the Korean Central News Agency, is that international criticism of its human rights record is a pretext for overthrowing its "Juche"-based system, while the abuses of its critics go unpunished.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: The General Assembly of the United Nations has since 2003 annually adopted a resolution condemning the country's human rights record. The latest resolution of December 19, 2011, passed by a vote of 123–16 with 51 abstentions, urged the government in Pyongyang to end its "systematic, widespread and grave violations of human rights", which included public executions and arbitrary detentions. North Korea rejected the resolution, saying it was politically motivated and based upon untrue fabrications. In February 2014, a UN special commission published a detailed, 400-page account based on first-hand testimonies documenting "unspeakable atrocities" committed in the country.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: On May 6, 2013, the United Nations Human Rights Council announced an appointment of Michael Kirby of Australia, Sonja Biserko of Serbia, and Marzuki Darusman of Indonesia as members of the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: [The] commission of inquiry will investigate the systematic, widespread and grave violations of human rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea ... including the violation of the right to food, the violations associated with prison camps, torture and inhumane treatment, arbitrary detention, discrimination, violations of freedom of expression, violations of the right to life, violations of freedom of movement, and enforced disappearances, including in the form of abductions of nationals of other States, with a view to ensuring full accountability, in particular where these violations may amount to crimes against humanity.<ref name="A/HRC/RES/22/13"></ref>


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: On August 20, 2013, the commission began five days of public hearings at Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea receiving testimony from defectors, and on August 29, 2013, in Japan from relatives of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s. North Korea describes the inquiry as "a political plot" and it has not given investigators access to the country. The UN panel interviewed witnesses in South Korea, Japan, and the UK, and it also conducted hearings in the U.S. on October 30 and 31, 2013. The commission said it has consistently asked North Korean representatives to take part in the public hearings and question witnesses.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: On February 17, 2014, the panel published its findings in a 400-page report. The commission accused the North Korean government of being involved in systemic, widespread and gross human rights violations. The panel chairman Michael Kirby described some acts by stating that they resembled those committed by the Nazis.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: Roberta Cohen, joint chair of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, said it was now up to the world community to take action to protect those persecuted and bring the perpetrators to justice. The DPRK rejected the findings. In a statement it said the commission was "a product of politicization of human rights on the part of the EU and Japan, in alliance with the US hostile policy". On November 18, 2014, the UN voted in favor of a draft resolution to refer North Korea to the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: Human-rights discourse in North Korea has a history that predates the establishment of the state in 1948. Based on Marxist theory, Confucian tradition, and the "Juche" idea, North Korean human-rights theory regards rights as conditional rather than universal, holds that collective rights take priority over individual rights, and that welfare and subsistence rights are important.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: Kim Il-sung stated that the concept of democracy cannot "provide freedom and rights to hostile elements who oppose socialism or impure elements who act against the interests of the People".


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: The government of North Korea claims that the Constitution of the DPRK guarantees the human rights of its people, and that these guarantees are fully elaborated in its laws and regulations. It claims that these human-rights guarantees and laws are strictly enforced throughout the country and with respect to every individual.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: Seven months after the release of the Commission of Inquiry report, North Korea released its own DPRK Association for Human Rights Studies report, which claims that North Koreans enjoy "genuine human rights". North Korea also agreed to implement 113 of the 268 recommendations to improve its human rights performance made at the UN Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review process. Kirby cited North Korea's participation in the Universal Periodic Review, the country's publication of their own human rights report, and Hwang Pyong-so's visit to the 2014 Asian Games a "charm offensive" and expressed skepticism about whether the North Korean government has become genuinely concerned about human rights or is simply preparing for imminent criticism in the UN. Kirby welcomed parts of the DPRK Association for Human Rights Studies report as "fair comment" but noted that it fails to discuss the issues raised in the Commission of Inquiry report.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: North Korea's founder Kim Il-sung rejected the concept of civil rights for people who oppose the regime. There is an extensive system of informants throughout North Korea which monitor Koreans with respect to political and other possible infractions without reference to formal civil rights.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has officially acknowledged the widespread human rights violations that regularly occur in North Korea. United Nation's Human Rights Resolution 2005/11 referred to specific types of abuses within North Korea:


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: North Korea is one of the few nations in the world that does not belong to the International Labour Organization (ILO). However, ILO conventions are considered international labor standards regardless of ratification. The ruling Korean Workers' Party firmly controls the only authorized trade union organization, the General Federation of Trade Unions of Korea.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: According to Human Rights Watch, children (some as young as 11) are forced to work on farms and construction sites at the behest of the government, and may be demanded to gather scrap metals and other materials by schools to be sold. The labor can be intensive and children living in the country's Kwalliso (detention camps) are also forced to engage in heavy work.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: The North Korean constitution has clauses guaranteeing the freedoms of speech and assembly. In practice, other clauses take precedence, including the requirement that citizens follow a socialist way of life. Criticism of the government and its leaders is strictly curtailed and making such statements can be cause for arrest and consignment to one of North Korea's "re-education" camps. The government distributes all radio and television sets; citizens are forbidden to alter them to make it possible to receive broadcasts from other nations; doing so carries severe penalties.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: There are numerous civic organizations but all of them appear to be operated by the government. All routinely praise the government and perpetuate the personality cults of the Kim family. Defectors indicate that the promotion of the cult of personality is one of the primary functions of almost all films, plays, and books produced within the country.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: The North Korean constitution nominally protects religious freedom, as long as it is not used to harm the state or the social order. However, in practice, there is no genuine religious freedom, and the government severely restricts religious activity except if it is supervised by government organizations.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: Reports from refugee, defector, missionary, and nongovernmental organizations report that individuals engaging in proselytizing, with ties to overseas evangelical groups operating in China, or who have been repatriated from China and found to been in contact with foreigners or missionaries are likely to be arrested and harshly penalized.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: Refugees and defectors allege that they witnessed the arrests and execution of members of underground Christian churches by the regime. Due to the country's inaccessibility and the inability to gain timely information, the continuation of this activity remains difficult to verify.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: According to the Christian Open Doors organization, North Korea is the leader among countries who persecute Christians. Christian Solidarity Worldwide say there are numerous reports of people being sent to prison camps and subjected to torture and inhuman treatment because of their faith. It is estimated that 50,000–70,000 Christians are held in North Korean prison camps. There are reports of public executions of Christians. For example, Ri Hyon-ok was allegedly publicly executed in Ryongchon on June 16, 2009 for giving out Bibles, while her husband and children were deported to the Hoeryong political prison camp. If authorities discover that North Korean refugees deported from China have converted to Christianity, they suffer harsher ill-treatment, torture, and prolonged imprisonment. The government considers religious activities political crimes, because they could challenge the personality cult and semi-deification of Kim Il-sung and his family.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: From 1949 to the mid-1950s, under the rule of Kim Il-sung, all churches were closed. According to "AsiaNews", all non-foreign Catholic priests were executed, and Protestant leaders who did not renounce their faith were purged as "American spies". The martyrdom of the Benedictine monks of Tokwon Abbey was documented as the process of beatification was initiated for them. Only 60 out of 400 Buddhist temples have survived the religious persecution in the 1950s. The 1,600 monks were killed, disappeared in prison camps or were forced to recant their faith. The remaining temples are now preserved as national cultural heritage. North Korean defectors reported that government-employed "monks" are serving as caretakers and tourist guides, but they did not see genuine worship. As reported, most Buddhists are afraid to openly practice their religion in the temple areas and practice their religion only in secret. However, on special occasions, ceremonies were permitted by the authorities.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: The North Korean government estimated the number of religious believers in 2002 to be 12,000 Protestants, 10,000 Buddhists and 800 Catholics, while estimates by South Korean and international church-related groups were considerably higher. In addition, the Chondoist Chongu Party, a government-approved traditional religious movement, had approximately 15,000 practitioners.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: Since 1988, four church buildings have been erected in Pyongyang with foreign donations: one Catholic, two Protestant and one Russian Orthodox. However, they are only open to foreigners, and North Korean citizens cannot attend the services. The services are used to bring in foreign currency from foreign visitors, including South Koreans. It is therefore clear that the churches are there solely for propaganda purposes.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: North Korean citizens usually cannot freely travel around the country, let alone travel abroad. Emigration and immigration are strictly controlled. Only the political elite may own or lease vehicles, and the government limits access to fuel and other forms of transport due to frequent shortages of gasoline/petrol, diesel fuel, crude oil, coal and other fossil fuels due to the severe sanctions placed on North Korea by the U.S. and other nations (satellite photos of North Korea show an almost complete absence of vehicles on all of its roads throughout the country, even in its cities). Forced resettlement of citizens and whole families, especially as punishment for political reasons, is said to be routine.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: North Korean refugees who flee to China are often later forcibly repatriated back to North Korea by authorities, and are routinely beaten and sent to prison camps after repatriation. This is because the North Korean government treats emigrants from the country as defectors. This treatment is more severe in cases where North Korean refugees have come into contact with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that are associated with South Korea or with religions, especially Christianity. In cases where the North Korean government discovers that contact has occurred between refugees and these NGOs, the punishments for these refugees are torture and execution upon their repatriation back to North Korea.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: According to "The Independent", in May 2016 Kim Jong-un temporarily banned all weddings and funerals across the country, and freedom of movement into and out of the capital, in preparation for a meeting, on 6 May, of the Workers' Party of Korea, the first gathering of its kind in 36 years.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: On 28 July 2020, UN human rights reported that women detained in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea are being subjected to multiple, serious human rights violations at the hands of security and police officials. The women have been given inadequate quantity and poor quality of food, leading to extreme malnutrition.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: , North Korea occupies the last place on the Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders. The constitution of North Korea provides for freedom of the press, but in practice, all media is strictly controlled by the government. The national media is focused almost entirely on political propaganda and the promotion of the personality cults surrounding Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il. It emphasizes historical grievances toward the U.S. and Japan.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: Reporters Without Borders claims that radio or television sets that can be bought in North Korea are preset to receive only the government frequencies and sealed with a label to prevent tampering with the equipment. It is a serious criminal offense to manipulate the sets and receive radio or television broadcasts from outside North Korea. In a party campaign in 2003, the head of each party cell in neighborhoods and villages received instructions to verify the seals on all radio sets.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: As North and South Korea use different television systems (PAL and NTSC, respectively), it is not possible to view broadcasts across the border between the two countries; however, in areas bordering China, it has reportedly been possible to receive television from that country. A United Nations envoy reported that any North Korean citizen caught watching a South Korean film may result in that person being sent to a labor camp.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: North Korea's population is one of the world's most ethnically homogeneous, and immigration is almost non-existent. Among the few immigrants that have willingly gone to North Korea are Japanese spouses (generally wives) of Koreans who returned from Japan from 1955 to the early 1980s. These Japanese have been forced to assimilate, and for the most part, the returnees overall are reported to have not been fully accepted into North Korean society (with a few exceptions, such as those who became part of the government), and instead ended up on the fringes. Foreigners who visit the country are generally strictly monitored by government minders and are forbidden to enter certain locations.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: In 2014, after the United Nations Human Rights Council published a report on human rights in North Korea advising a referral to the International Criminal Court, the official Korean Central News Agency responded with an article that included homophobic insults against report author Michael Kirby, who is openly gay. The KCNA's article went on to state that gay marriage "can never be found in the DPRK boasting of the sound mentality and good morals, and homosexuality has become a target of public criticism even in Western countries, too. In fact, it is ridiculous for such gay to sponsor dealing with others' human rights issue."


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: As a state party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), North Korea has international obligations to refrain from discriminating against its people based on disability (among other criteria). Under Article 2 of the CRC, "States Parties shall respect and ensure the rights set forth in the present Convention to each child within their jurisdiction "without discrimination" of any kind, irrespective of the child's or their parent's or legal guardian's race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national, ethnic or social origin, property, "disability", birth or other status" (emphasis added).


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: On March 22, 2006, the Associated Press reported from South Korea that a North Korean doctor who defected, Ri Kwang-chol, has claimed that babies born with physical defects are rapidly put to death and buried. A report by the United Nations special rapporteur for human rights in North Korea highlighted reports from defectors describing how disabled people are allegedly "rounded up" and sent to "special camps".


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: However, the charity Handicap International reports that it has been operating in North Korea since 1999, assisting the Korean Federation for the Protection of Disabled People, including supporting orthopedic centers serving thousands of disabled people. The International Committee of the Red Cross reported in 2006 that it had assisted in setting up a rehabilitation center for disabled people in Pyongyang. The International Campaign to Ban Landmines reports that North Korea "has a comprehensive system for assisting persons with disabilities; however, this system is limited by the general economic situation of the country." North Korea participated in the Paralympic Games for the first time in 2012.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: Still, the special rapporteur for human rights in the DPRK, Marzuki Darusman, stated the following in his report before the United Nations Human Rights Council's twenty-second session:


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: As early as 2003 the Commission on Human Rights expressed deep concern at the "mistreatment of and discrimination of disabled children". Since 2006 the General Assembly has consistently decried "continuing reports of violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms of persons with disabilities, especially on the use of collective camps and coercive measures that target the rights of persons with disabilities to decide freely and responsibly on the number and spacing of their children." Whereas in 2006 the Special Rapporteur noted "to date, those with disabilities are sent away from the capital city, and particularly those with mental disabilities are detained in areas or camps known as 'Ward 49' with harsh and subhuman conditions."


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: According to "Marked for Life: Songbun, North Korea's Social Classification System", North Korea adopted a law in 2003 to promote equal access to public services for disabled people and it claimed in its second report on compliance with the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights that its handicapped citizens are protected. North Korea acceded to this covenant on September 14, 1981. However, its law has not been implemented, and North Korean refugees in the South testify that the handicapped are severely discriminated against unless they are wounded soldiers who say their wounds were the result of U.S. aggression during the Korean War.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: A January 2004 report by Amnesty International noted that "North Korea remains dependent on food aid to feed its people, yet government policy still prevents the swift and equitable distribution of this aid, while the population is denied the right to freedom of movement, which would enable people to go and search for food." The report found that the North Korean government had "failed in its duty to uphold and protect" the right to food and that the regime's actions "have exacerbated the effects of the famine and food crisis".


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: Shortly thereafter, the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea published "Hunger and Human Rights: The Politics of Famine in North Korea" (by Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland, 2005), which discussed the probability that North Korean food shortages in the 1990s were a man-made (regime) phenomenon and that with plausible policy adjustments – such as maintaining food imports on commercial terms or aggressively seeking multilateral assistance – the North Korean government could have avoided famine and food shortages. Instead, in a desperate attempt to conserve resources for the Korean government, the regime blocked humanitarian aid and diverted resources to the military.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: In 2016, British scholar Hazel Smith reported that health and nutrition of the population had improved greatly and was comparable to other developing countries. She disputed the view that government policies were creating a human rights crisis that was unique to North Korea.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: Economic reform abolished the old coupon system in North Korea, which had favored non-productive citizens regarding access to food. After the coupon system disappeared, an average urban family spent between 75 and 85 percent of their income on food, while state farmers were spending only a third of their income on food. These disparities show that North Korea does not have safety net mechanisms to protect the vulnerable people in society, such as housewives and the elderly.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: When the food crisis began, access to food came through a public distribution system (PDS) controlled by the regime, and entitlements were partly a function of political status. As the planned economy crumbled and markets developed in response to the state's inability to fulfill its obligations under the old social compact, the character of the crisis changed. Current shortages bear a closer resemblance to food emergencies in market and transition economies, where access to food is determined by one's capacity to command resources in the marketplace. This type of emergency is no less severe, but poses different challenges to outside donors.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: Food is distributed to the civilian population of North Korea through two channels. Workers on state and cooperative farms account for roughly 30 percent of the population, and most of these farmers are granted an annual allotment of grain at the time of the harvest. However, the country is highly urbanized, and the bulk of the population is fed through the PDS. The PDS distributes food as a monthly or biweekly ration. Rations, in turn, vary according to occupational status and age. For example, high-ranking party, government, and military officials are fed through separate distribution channels and receive higher rations, as do certain classes of workers.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: In confronting the fundamentally non-cooperative stance of the North Korean government, the humanitarian community has pursued two basic strategies to guarantee the integrity of its assistance: the targeting of vulnerable groups, and the monitoring of food deliveries to assure that these targeted populations are being reached. At virtually every point, the North Korean government has placed roadblocks in the way of the donor community in North Korea, which succeeded to the extent that it did only through extraordinary perspicacity and flexibility. Yet, even by its own admission, this monitoring effort is a leaky sieve, and it is estimated that between 10 and 30 percent of food aid is diverted. Most concerns with diversion center on the appropriation of food by the military. Military and party elites have other sources of food; an equal if not greater problem is the diversion of food to the market or to less deserving groups.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: Also, the remote regions that suffered from the most severe famine conditions were the first regions to stop receiving shipments of food supplies, and at the same time, as local industry collapsed, residents' purchasing power decreased.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: Restrictions on the freedom to move caused the so-called 'hostile class' ‒ whose members were relocated to remote mountain areas ‒ to suffer from the limited access to food.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: A UN human rights office report released in May 2019 highlighted the "appalling" levels of hunger that have been affecting around 10.9 million people particularly in north-eastern and rural provinces of North Korea. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet said, "The rights to food, health, shelter, work, freedom of movement and liberty are universal and inalienable, but in North Korea they depend primarily on the ability of individuals to bribe State officials."


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: According to testimony by a previous detainee, detention was most often severely overcrowded and there existed a serious lack of food. "[It] made life in Yodok very difficult. We were given corn-rice in small quantities; at times we got only salt soup with cabbage leaves. No meat was served. We were always hungry; and resorted to eating grass in spring. Three or four people died of malnutrition. When someone died, fellow prisoners delayed reporting his death to the authorities so that they could eat his allocated breakfast." Prisoners were punished with withdrawal of food as well as torture and harsh labor. Malnutrition and infectious disease caused more than half of the deaths in detention.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: A group called "A Woman's Voice International" alleged that the state forcibly drafts girls as young as 14 years old to work in the so-called "kippŭmjo", which includes prostitution teams. The source used is unclear as to whether only adult "kippŭmjo" are assigned to prostitution or whether there is prostitution of children – other "kippŭmjo" activities include massaging and cabaret dancing. Claims were made that they are ordered "to marry guards of Kim Jong-il or national heroes" when they are 25 years old.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: The People's Republic of China returns all refugees from North Korea, treated as illegal immigrants, usually imprisoning them in a short-term facility. Women who are suspected of being impregnated by Chinese men are subjected to forced abortions; babies born alive are killed. Abortions up to full term are induced by injection; live premature babies or full-term newborns are sometimes killed but more commonly simply discarded into a bucket or box and then buried. They may live several days in the disposal container.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: The death penalty, often without judicial due process, is administered for a wide variety of political and common crimes. Attempts to escape from the country or from a prison camp within the country may result in execution on the spot. Personnel in the criminal justice system have wide discretion and are allegedly authorized to operate without regard to the formal legal rights of Koreans.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: A number of members of the regime itself have disappeared or been executed after falling out of favor. The most prominent example is Jang Sung-taek, the uncle of North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-un. On December 8, 2013, Jang was publicly expelled from the ruling Workers' Party of Korea. Some of the accusations included "illicit affairs with women, obstructing the nation's economic affairs, and committing anti-party factional acts". On December 13, 2013, the state media announced that Jang had been executed.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: The constitution states that courts are independent and that judicial proceedings are to take place in strict accordance to the law; however, an independent judiciary does not exist. Little information is available on formal criminal-justice procedures and practices, with outside access to the legal system limited to trials for traffic violations and other minor offenses.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: The Ministry of Social Security (North Korea) (MSS) dispenses with trials in political cases and refers prisoners to the State Security Department (SSD) for punishment. According to "Hidden Gulag", most inmates in prison camps arrive there without trial, without knowing the charges against them, and without having legal counsel. "Witness to Transformation" reported that only 13 percent of the 102 respondents who had been incarcerated in the country received a trial.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: North Korea resumed public executions in October 2007 - such executions had declined in number in the years following 2000 amidst international criticism. Prominent executed criminals include officials convicted of drug trafficking and embezzlement. Reports also tell of the executions - mostly by firing-squad - of common criminals convicted of crimes such as murder, robbery, rape, drug dealing, smuggling, piracy and vandalism. The country does not publicly release national crime statistics or reports on the levels of crimes.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: In October 2007 a firing-squad executed a South Pyongan province factory-chief (convicted of making international phone calls from 13 phones he installed in his factory basement) in front of a crowd of 150,000 people in a stadium, according to a report from a South Korean aid agency called Good Friends. Good Friends also reported that six were killed in the crush as spectators left. In another instance, 15 people were publicly executed in 2008 for crossing the border into China.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: In 2007 a UN General Assembly committee adopted a draft resolution, co-sponsored by more than 50 countries, expressing "very serious concern" at reports of widespread human rights violations in North Korea, including public executions. North Korea condemned the draft as inaccurate and biased, but it was still sent to the then 192-member General Assembly for a final vote.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: In 2011 two people were executed in front of 500 spectators for handling propaganda leaflets that had floated across the border from South Korea, apparently as part of a campaign by former North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il to tighten ideological control as he groomed his youngest son as the eventual successor.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: In June 2019 a Seoul-based human rights group, the Transitional Justice Working Group, claimed to have identified at least 323 sites in North Korea, where public executions took place. The group said the most common charges for execution ranged from "stealing copper and livestock" to "anti-state" activities and illegally crossing into the PRC.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: According to many organizations, the conditions in North Korean prisons are harsh and life-threatening. Additionally, prisoners are subjected to torture and inhumane treatment by North Korean authorities. Public and secret executions of prisoners, including children, especially in cases of escape attempts, and infanticides (forced abortions and baby killings upon birth) often occur. The mortality rate is very high, because many prisoners die of starvation, illnesses, work accidents, or torture.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: The North Korean government flatly denies all allegations of human rights violations in prison camps, claiming that it is prohibited by criminal procedure law, but former prisoners testify that there are completely different rules in the prison camps. The North Korean government has failed to provide any information on prisoners or prison camps or even to allow access to any human rights organization.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: Lee Soon-ok gave detailed testimony on her treatment in the North Korean prison system to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2002. In her statement she said, "I testify that most of the 6,000 prisoners who were there when I arrived in 1987 had quietly perished under the harsh prison conditions by the time I was released in 1992." Many other former prisoners, such as Kang Chol-hwan, have given detailed testimonies on the human rights crimes in North Korean prison camps.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: According to the testimony of former camp guard Ahn Myong Chol of Camp 22, the guards are trained to treat the detainees as sub-human or slaves. He gave an account of children in one of the camps fighting over who got to eat a kernel of corn retrieved from cow dung.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: The North Korean prison camp facilities can be divided into large internment camps for political prisoners (Kwan-li-so in Korean) and reeducation prison camps (Kyo-hwa-so in Korean).


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: On October 19, 2020, Human Rights Watch released an 88-page report "'Worth Less Than an Animal': Abuses and Due Process Violations in Pretrial Detention in North Korea", detailing the torture, abuse and unhygienic conditions of detainees in North Korea pretrial detention centers. Revealing the opaque criminal justice system, the report highlighted the "arbitrary, violent, cruel and degrading" investigation system of North Korea.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: The internment camps for people accused of political offenses or denounced as politically unreliable are run by the state security department. Political prisoners were historically subjected to the family responsibility principle, which meant that the immediate family members of a convicted political criminal were also regarded as political criminals and interned. However, since 1994 there has been a near-abandonment of this family responsibility principle.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: The internment camps are located in central and northeastern North Korea. They comprise many prison labor colonies in secluded mountain valleys, completely isolated from the outside world. The total number of prisoners is estimated to be 80,000 to 120,000. The Yodok and Bukchang camps are separated into two sections: one for political prisoners in lifelong detention, the other similar to re-education camps where prisoners are serving long-term sentences with the vague hope that they will eventually be released.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: The prisoners are forced to perform hard and dangerous slave labor with primitive means in mining and agriculture. The food rations are very small, so the prisoners are constantly on the brink of starvation. In combination with the hard work, this leads to huge numbers of prisoners dying. An estimated 40% of prisoners die from malnutrition. Moreover, many prisoners are crippled from work accidents, frostbite or torture. There is a rigid punishment system in the camp. Prisoners who work too slowly or do not obey an order are beaten or tortured. In cases of stealing food or attempting to escape, the prisoners are publicly executed.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: Initially, there were around twelve political prison camps, but some were merged or closed (e.g. Onsong prison camp, Kwan-li-so No. 12 was closed down following an unsuccessful riot in 1987 where around 5,000 prisoners were killed). Today there are six political prison camps in North Korea (see below).


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: Most of the camps are documented in testimonies of former prisoners, and coordinates and satellite images of all are available.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: The South Korean journalist Kang Chol-hwan is a former prisoner of Yodok Political Prison Camp and has written a book, "The Aquariums of Pyongyang", about his time in the camp. The International Coalition to Stop Crimes Against Humanity in North Korea (ICNK) estimates that over 10,000 people die in North Korean prison camps every year.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: The re-education camps for criminals are run by the interior ministry. There is a fluent passage between common crimes and political crimes, because people who get on the bad side of influential partisans are often denounced on the basis of false accusations. They are then sent to detention centers, threatened with brutal torture and forced to make false confessions (Lee Soon-ok, for example, had to kneel down whilst being showered with water at icy temperatures with other prisoners, of whom six did not survive) and are then condemned in a brief show trial to a long-term prison sentence. In North Korea, political crimes are greatly varied, from border crossing to any disturbance of the political order, and they are rigorously punished. Due to the dire prison conditions with hunger and torture, a large percentage of prisoners do not survive their sentence term.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: The re-education camps are large prison building complexes surrounded by high walls. The plight of the prisoners is quite similar to that in the political prison camps. They have to perform slave labor in prison factories. If they do not meet the work quota, they are tortured and (at least in Kaechon camp) confined for many days to special prison cells, too small to stand up or lie full-length in.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: In distinction from the internment camps for political prisoners, the re-education camp prisoners are instructed ideologically after work and are forced to memorize speeches of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il and to undergo self-criticism rites. Many prison inmates are guilty of common crimes penalized also in other countries, but often they were committed out of economic necessity, e.g. illegal border crossing, stealing food or illegal trading.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: The South Korean human rights activist Lee Soon-ok has written a book ("") about her time in a camp and testified before the US Senate.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: In October 2014, North Korea admitted for the first time that it had labor camps. Choe Myong Nam, a North Korean foreign ministry spokesperson said "Both in law and practice, we do have reform through labor detention camps – no, detention centers – where people are improved through their mentality and look on their wrongdoings".


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: In the decades after the Korean War, there were reports that North Korea had abducted many foreign nationals, mainly South Korean and Japanese. There are many testimonies that nine European citizens and several U.S. citizens have also been abducted to North Korea. For years, these were dismissed as conspiracy theories even by many of the regime's critics; however, in September 2002, Kim Jong-Il partially acknowledged to Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi the involvement of North Korean "special institutions" in the kidnapping of Japanese citizens during a period of six years from 1977 to 1983. Kim officially admitted to abducting 13 Japanese citizens out of 17 Japanese the Japanese government accused North Korea of abducting. He stated that those responsible had been punished.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: Five surviving victims were allowed to visit Japan and decided not to return to North Korea. For eight more Japanese abductees, officials claimed deaths caused by accidents or illnesses; Japan says this leaves two still unaccounted for, and says that what North Korea claimed were the ashes of Megumi Yokota were not hers.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: Regardless of the admission to Prime Minister Koizumi, the North Korean government continues to deny the kidnappings of other foreign nationals and refuses any cooperation to investigate further cases of suspected abductions. In 2017, a former Japanese abductee Hasuike publicly stated that "Japan's prime minister needs to visit North Korea again", urging Prime Minister Shinzō Abe to visit North Korea to discuss the continuing abduction issues between North Korea and Japan by taking the advantage of the Pyongyang Declaration.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: Officials of the South Korean government claim that 486 South Koreans, mostly fishermen, are believed to have been abducted since the end of the Korean War. Advocates and family members have accused the government of doing little or nothing to gain their freedom. South Korea officially recognized 480 South Korean abductees to be held in North Korea. Even after the Korean War, North Korea is accused of abducting South Koreans such as Kim Dong-shik, who was abducted on January 16, 2000 and Jin Gyeong-suk, a North Korean defector to South Korea who was abducted on August 8, 2004.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: In November 2013, a civic group, the Korean War Abductees Family Association (KWAFA), consisting of family members of South Koreans abducted to North Korea during the Korean War (1950–53), said it will take North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for unlawful detention of the abductees and failure to address related abuses.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: Examples of non-Korean or non-Japanese people abducted by North Korea include Doina Bumbea, from Romania, and Anocha Panjoy, from Thailand, as well as several others.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: Many countries and multilateral organizations have criticized North Korea for its alleged human rights abuses. Since 2005, the United Nations General Assembly has adopted a resolution every year to condemn the human rights situation in North Korea.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: Multiple countries have been critical of the allegations made against North Korea. China's delegation to the United Nations said that North Korea has made considerable progress in protecting human rights. Sudan's government said that instead of criticizing the country, there should be support by the international community for North Korea's efforts to protect human rights. Venezuela's delegation to the United Nations asserted that the allegations made by UN observers against North Korea are based on flawed criteria and are not credible. Cuba's delegation to the United Nations said that the body's claims made against North Korea are politically motivated and seek to impose isolation and pressure on the country, in violation of the Human Rights Council's stated principles.


title: Human rights in North Korea

text: The U.S. and Japan have passed laws and created envoys in order to bring this issue to public attention. The U.S. initially passed the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004 in October of that year, and reauthorized the law in 2008. It created an office at the State Department focused on North Korean human rights, run originally by Special Envoy Jay Lefkowitz.