Wow – I'm sort of impressed.
Given enough time and preparation, The Korea Herald, newspaper I've been known to take potshots at on quite a few occasions, seems to be able to put out some pretty decent coverage.
Take a look at the series they did – in PDF form – on the Korean education system, which actually covers quite a bit, from the equalization policy to problems on the college entrance exam – good job.
For someone familiar with the basics of the how the education system works here, but wants a bit more in-depth information, this is a report that hits in the right spot. I wish they had been more hard-hitting with certain issues, such as the problem of suicide, but I think they were trying to cover a lot of bases fairly honestly.
It's a good read, especially for those of you as interested in education reform as I am. One bonus for me was finally getting to see a good picture of Kim Shin-il, whom I've known as the only obscure scholar writing about the education system when I was writing my first seminar paper about the subject in 1994, but who is now the Minister of Education.
His scholarship was always frank and brave – let's continue to watch how he does as a politician.
I've punctuated this post with videos uploaded to YouTube by an ambitious student somewhere out there. It echoes my experience of working in a real Korean school to a T – although my memories were even more harsh, and were they on camera, would be even more indicting.