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Background of the Free Semester System

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Today, we will briefly look at the background of the introduction of the Free Semester System in Korea!

1. Why?

When we talk about Korea, we cannot leave out the enthusiasm for education.
This enthusiasm for education has led to Korea’s rapid growth and development, but the side effects of excessive entrance exam competition and spoon-fed education have been consistently raised.

According to the results of the Program for International Student Assessment (International Comparative Study of Academic Achievement), Korean students have the highest grades in the world, but their intrinsic motivation (self-esteem, interest) is at the bottom. In other words, they are studying without thinking about ‘why’ they are studying,
Forced!
Because they are told to!
Mechanically!
Blindly!

When looking at this phenomenon in Korea, American futurist Alvin Toffler criticized,
“Korean students are wasting 15 hours a day at school and academies, studying knowledge that will not be needed in the future and jobs that will not exist.”
The “Free Semester System” was introduced to solve this situation!!!

2. What?

So, what exactly is the Free Semester System?
The Free Semester System, one of the government’s key pledges, is a system that flexibly operates the curriculum to improve class operation to student participation such as discussion and practice, and to allow various experiential activities such as career exploration activities so that students can be free from the burden of exams during one semester out of the six semesters of middle school, and find their dreams and talents.

In 2013, 42 middle schools were designated as research schools and operated as pilot schools,
and it is planned to be introduced to approximately 800 schools (approximately 25% of all middle schools) in 2014,
approximately 1,500 schools (approximately 50% of all middle schools) in 2015,
and approximately 2,800 middle schools in 2016.

3. How?

Korea’s Free Semester System is modeled after Ireland’s Transition Year System. The reason is that Ireland and Korea have similar socio-cultural backgrounds and similar concerns about solving educational problems.

Let’s take a quick look at Ireland. Its per capita national income is $46,000, ranking 17th in the world. Its industrial structure is highly developed, so it has high educational fervor and a college entrance rate of over 60%, making it a country with fierce competition for college entrance exams in Europe. As a result, students had a lot of pressure about their grades and lacked reflection on the society they would have to live in. To solve this, TY (Transition Year) was first introduced in 1974 by Richard Burke, who was the Minister of Education at the time. Now, most students choose and participate in TY.
In summary, Ireland, which had similar concerns to Korea, solved many of the above concerns through TY, so if we look closely at the history of TY in Ireland, we can see that it was very helpful in determining the direction of the free semester system in Korea.

However, any policy will have positive and negative effects, and there are pros and cons accordingly.
So in the next post, I will look at more overseas cases, including Ireland, and also examine the opinions of those in favor and against the free semester system to look at it from a balanced perspective.

See you next time:)

Bye!