English-only kindergartens in Korea cost more than medical schools

[waves-of-light.livejournal.com]

The average one-year tuition for English-only kindergartens here is 11.59 million won ($9,660), nearly double the average tuition of domestic universities (6.71 million won) and even higher than that of medical schools (9.63 million won). Nevertheless their number has increased by 41 percent over the past two years on the back of unwavering demand for early English education for children among deep-pocketed families.

While many of the kindergartens are in Seoul's affluent Gangnam area, those in Incheon, Jeju Island and Busan also flourish.

Rep. Jun Hee-kyung of the main opposition Liberty Party Korea revealed the data on Tuesday. The lawmaker said this indicated the "English divide" between the haves and have-nots was widening in a country where fluent English speakers still enjoy relatively high chances of a good education and career.

As of 2019, there are 558 English-only kindergartens across the country, up from 474 in 2018, and their average monthly tuition fee is 966,000 won, up 66,000 won from last year. This is nearly six times higher than the average monthly tuition of ordinary kindergartens ― 160,000 won.

"The government's inconsistent (English education) policy can be blamed for this," Jun said.

The government scrapped its plan to ban extracurricular English education at kindergartens last October because from criticism of mid- and low-income parents. Early this year, it also lifted a ban on English education for first and second graders at elementary schools.






source: The Korea Times

Comments

[shalottlady07.livejournal.com]

With an almost 20% increase in the number of schools in a single year, I would have serious reservations about the quality of the education my (non-existent) child would be receiving. Plus, the quality of the teaching staff.
It’s good the government didn’t take away the opportunity for kids to start language learning early for those who can’t afford these schools.

[torontok.livejournal.com]

Yeah I doubt the teaching staff are all great. I know some amazing English teachers in Korea and also those who went there as their gap year and have zero experience

[jasmineakaiumi.livejournal.com]

Very that. I know a few who do it because it's an easy way to save up money while partying your life away, and others who are actually certified teachers that have passion for the work and want to make it/have made it their life careers.

The lack of balance between the two extremes makes me super skeptical about the quality of education being given to these students.

[torontok.livejournal.com]

I remember hearing from my friend about a French guy who taught at the school nears her who could barely speak English himself, he was just hired because white foreigner=legit to some of these places.The system is seriously not regulated enough considering that these people will be working with kids.I remember that creepy American teacher in Japan who got caught making sexual comments about his female students to friends back home.

[shalottlady07.livejournal.com]

I would be so pissed as a parent if I found out I was paying $10K for some post-college grad with no practical teaching experience was teaching my kindergartener. Especially at that age, it’s really important to have an understanding of how to teach. It’s not like you can just read a book.

[premonitioner.livejournal.com]

My friend works at one of the Gangnam ones. She teaches the children of minor celebs. Apparently the gifts from the parents and principal (birthday cakes for all the kids, fruit during national holidays, etc) are no joke

[babyjenkski.livejournal.com]

Almost a decade ago, I researched on the tuition fees of pre-schools in our country since my eldest was in the right age already to start school. I found that a lot of pre-schools tuition were higher than the tuition for elementary and high school of good schools. They said its because its the formative years of a child, it requires teachers with specific specialty and so many other reasons. So ok that gives them a valid reason to charge higher but I just think 966,000 KW "monthly" is insane. Just 8 months kindergarten in South Korea...that's the total amount we paid for our 2 kids in pre-school.

It's not easy to learn a second language and they always say that its better when you start learning at a younger age. I honestly think that its easy for people in our country to learn English since most of the people here mix it in regular conversations plus the English grammar is similar to ours that you can directly translate each word in a sentence and it will make sense as a complete sentence (translated from our language to English word for word) without having to change the sentence structure. As someone who attempted to learn the Korean language, it was a challenge (must be because of my age hahaha) because where is the subject-verb-agreement in the Korean language? So I just feel like maybe Koreans also experience this difficulty that's why they charge so much to be really good in English since its said that people who are proficient in the language have higher or better chances of getting hired at good companies when they finish school. I'm not sure how well they teach English in SK schools (how well meaning are the kids able to pick up the language earlier and be able to speak/write comfortably) but these thoughts came to mind.

There are lots of Koreans who comes to our country to take short-term courses in English.They say that its mostly due to the shorter distance to our country than other English-speaking countries, the affordability of education here, and our general fluency in English.

OK...this is too long already LMAO It's just an interesting topic for me coz I can somehow relate =)

[yuwkon.livejournal.com]

Hmm, here's a simple sentence.

Pupunta ako doon. in Tagalog. In English it's I will go there.
Punta is the root word which means "to go" and we have this grammar thing (sorry i forgot) that we repeat the first syllable of the root word to have a different tense. So pupunta translates to "will go".
ako means "me".

Even though there's a change in the sentence structure but it still has the same point. (I hope i answered your question uwu)

[babyjenkski.livejournal.com]

One simple sample is
"This is a ball" which translate to "Ito ay isang bola" If you do a Google translate...
this - Ito
is - ay
ball - bola
"This is ball" and "Ito ay bola" although they may sound a bit weird but we can understand it clearly. Our language is a bit similar to English which is more structured.

[pseudo-shigure.livejournal.com]

it's insane what koreans would do just to learn english.

[921227.livejournal.com]

I wonder if these rich parents know that your 3,4,5,6 yr old can learn just as much english by watching english language childrens cartoons. At that age, theyre still developing language skills in their native one, theyre not being taught (at least they shouldnt be) theyre being immersed.

Also, its all gonna go down the drain if its not reinforced at home

[babyjenkski.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of RM who learned English by watching FRIENDS

[mjmjchick.livejournal.com]

I’m currently pregnant with my first, and aside from my reservations concerning her being biracial, I’m ready to just send her to a Korean kindergarten when it’s time (or have her do one of the forest kindys). She’ll be immersed in both English and Korean at home anyway, so... 🤷🏾‍♀️🤷🏾‍♀️🤷🏾‍♀️

[torontok.livejournal.com]

I hope you have a healthy pregnancy!

[broadway-bound3.livejournal.com]

I wonder what the long-term psychological affect is on these kids who have to learn two languages simultaneously at such an early age. I wonder if it's the same as having parents that speak multiple languages.

This amount for kindergarten education is obviously ridiculous. As a former ESL teacher in Korea I have a feeling that even with the tuition that high the teachers (Korean and Foreign) are getting the same base salary as everyone else teaching at a hagwon. I'd be surprised if they made more than 2.2 million won a month.

[921227.livejournal.com]

I doubt there's any adverse effects, not really. Bilingual children grow up learning just fine as long as equal attention is paid to both languages. The biggest issue would be parents/teachers prioritizing English over korean which would cause a deficit of their Korean fluency

[pwrpuffgrl.livejournal.com]

Kids can learn 3 or 4 languages at a very young age and they will speak them perfectly

[hillando.livejournal.com]

Bilingual kids are fine (I'm one of them), there are even studies that suggest we are better at multitasking because our brains are already hardwired to juggle between languages. Now as for whether those studies are correct....

[nekobot.livejournal.com]

And what are the odds these things are mostly staffed by koreaboos and white people "taking a year off to make some money and find myself" with 0 teaching qualifications?

[dior-chic.livejournal.com]

Seriously there are so many of them! I’ve been told how easy it is and that’s concerning, as I have NO teaching experience

[nekobot.livejournal.com]

I know people that have done it that should seriously should not even be put in charge of children to begin with, let alone be expected to teach them anything valuable. It's unreal how low the standards are!

[goshipgurl.livejournal.com]

Not only koreaboos. I know G.Na worked as an english tutor at an after school academy during her trainee days, and she did not have any teaching experience as well.

[sweetestbliss1.livejournal.com]

Is it just me or is medical school cheaper there? Only 8K for a year??!

[babyjenkski.livejournal.com]

Its just UD$3000 per year in one of the top universities here in our country.

[sweetestbliss1.livejournal.com]

yeah...not in the US. Maybe like 3K... per semester......for an in-state university.

[babyjenkski.livejournal.com]

As expected. The cost of living is really expensive in the US. Here in our country, a household that earns USD1,000 a month can send kids to a good school and live comfortably (be able to pay rent and everything else)

[sweetestbliss1.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's crazy. You can't pay rent with $1,000 USD where I live...

[dantethetaco.livejournal.com]

lmao I love seeing US americans reactions to university prices. Because mine was "Fuck, that's so expensive"

[sweetestbliss1.livejournal.com]

Hahaha that obvious, huh? I was like umm medical ain't cheap here! Or university in general. If you stay in state, it's cheaper, obviously, and if you live at home. Living on campus alone is like 10K.

[petecarl.livejournal.com]

Right? I thought it would be like $40,000/year. $9,000/year in comparison seems much more reasonable.i mean, that's how much my high school cost per year.

[sweetestbliss1.livejournal.com]

Yeah! 9K for medical school? Sign me up!! Hahah

[dior-chic.livejournal.com]

Ngl with so many apps that help with teaching a new language plus just consuming English-speaking media, I feel like a young child could learn English without paying a pretty penny

[hillando.livejournal.com]

I teach at an English kindie/hagwon (a franchise with a long history and good results), but I don't have many kindergarten classes thank god. I didn't want to teach them because I don't have early childhood education experience, but they still gave me some. I like the kids and they're really smart, but the pace of classes is brutal considering they're only 6-7 years old. Like, I would love to spend more time just talking and singing songs with them, but the school needs us to finish the course books in x months, so more writing it is!

That being said, the kids speak pretty good English, and they can read and write in two languages. Some of the 'after-kindie' kids (kindie graduates who keep attending after Korean school) actually had to drop out to work more on their Korean.