Seoul - 6.5 Education-oriented Culture

_{Understanding Korea Series No.4}
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4) Consumer Culture of the Subway Station Vicinity Areas	5) Education-oriented Culture	1) Global City Seoul

Koreans are known for their fervor for education. This education fever fuels the land price hike, forces parents to invest all their earnings on private education of the children instead of saving for retirement, and fathers willingly sacrifice themselves and become the ‘geese fathers.’ Every time the existing system collapsed, for example due to the Japanese Colonial Rule and the Korean War, the educated took opportunities to go one step above their social position. The legend of ‘dragon rising from small stream’ was possible in recent Korean history. Poor families sent their smartest child to Seoul for education and survived on scraps. They believed that once the child graduated from a prestigious high school and college, he would be able to get a good job and the upward mobility in the social strata would happen for the family. All prestigious high schools and colleges were clustered in downtown Gangbuk area. Not only the schools but also the private academies and residential areas were concentrated here making it the center of education.

The government relocated the prestigious high schools to Gangnam using this education fever, namely Gyeonggi High School, Huimun High School, Sukmyeong Women’s Middle and High School, and Seoul High School joined Gangnam’s 8th School District. Many graduates from these schools made it into the top colleges thanks to the high educational level and financial support of Gangnam parents. These schools were again recognized as prestigious even if the entrance exam for high schools was eliminated. The apartment prices around the 8th School District skyrocketed due to the rise in demand from parents who wanted to send their children to the schools in that district. A lot of parents took the story of ‘Mencius’s mother moving three time for her son’s education’ literally and took loans to move into Gangnam creating the ‘Gangnam Rush Phenomenon.’

Currently, the following joke is going around: the three ingredients required in succeeding to send a child to one of the top colleges are the grandfather’s financial support, the father’s indifference and the mother’s ability to gather information. In other words, to get into a good college, you need some wealth passed down from your grandfather, your father must be a high income earning workaholic who only cares about money and his job, and your mother must be devoted to run around and fetch educational information for you. The combination of these three criteria can most likely be met in ‘Gangnam.’

Table 7 Areas with Major Concentration of Private Academies in Seoul
	Number of Private Academies	Number of Private Institutes	Total
Gangnam-gu Daechi-dong	1,105	558	1,663
Yangcheon-gu Mok-dong	341	405	746
Nowon-gu Junggye-dong	299	199	498

Gangnam’s high land price reflects the solid financial state of the residents and the high percentage of professionals residing there. Because the opportunities and information about private education originate from the Daechi-dong Private Academy Street, residing in Gangnam provides an environment conducive to entering a good college. Besides Gangnam, Mok-dong and Junggye-dong, which developed into apartment complexes at around the same time, have good educational environment, and clusters of private academies have also formed a type of ‘specialized education district’ in these areas.