A Korean Nationalist Speaks on Education

This column is worth reading in its entirety and therefore I am posting it here. Education is highly emotive but it becomes even more dangerous when it starts to traverse the chasm which divides globalists/nationalists; right and left; liberals and conservatives, you name it. As you can see, even South Korea is facing the same issue. One thing which I noticed in my travels in South Korea (something that they share with Iran and Turkey, along with some other nations) is how nationalistic they are and how little others realise this sheer amount of nationalism. But read and weep!

Our Forefathers' Lessons Fell on Deaf Ears, by Kang Chun-suk

I have a couple of questions I'd like to put to the people of the Roh Moo-hyun
administration. I'd be more than pleased if the president, prime minister and
deputy premier would answer them, too. Only then will the arrogant 386
generation of former student activists now in office get serious.

The first question calls for identifying common features. Name two things these
figures from contemporary Korean history have in common: Lee Sang-jae, Syngman Rhee, Kim Jwa-jin, Lee Shi-young, Shin Chae-ho. Did you say they are all independence fighters? Then you're correct. But that's an answer any schoolchild who has read a Korean history book could give. Yes, these people do come from a list independence fighters, but you say you can't think of another quality they share? You, who boasted would rewrite our history, in which, you said, justice had been defeated and injustice prevailed, don't know it? Study your history books again. The correct answer is that they all aspired for the rebirth of
their fatherland and nation by establishing schools or becoming teachers.

Lee Sang-jae in 1894 established a foreign language school and served as
its principal. Syngman Rhee in 1895 taught English at Paichai Hakdang. Kim
Jwa-jin in 1907 set up Homyeong School in his hometown. Lee Shi-young in 1912
inaugurated Shin Heung Military Officer School in Bukgando (North Gando). And
Shin Chae-ho in 1905 taught at Mundong Hakwon in Cheongwon, North Chungcheong Province and established Sandong Hakwon.

Now let's identify one common feature that the following share: Kim Koo, Ahn Jung-geun, Lee Dong-hwi, Park Eun-sik, Ahn Chang-ho and Yi Sung-hun.

These too are all independence fighters. But is there more? The correct answer to this question, again, is that they all established schools or taught youngsters. Kim Koo established Bongyang School in Jangyeon, Hwanghae Province in 1900, Gwangjin School in 1904 and Yangsan School in 1906, and taught at each of them. Ahn Jung-geun established Samhung School in Jinnampo in 1906 and then Donui School. Park Eun-sik played the leading role in establishing Seobuk Cooperative School in 1906 and later became its principal. Lee Dong-hwi set up Hapil School in Gangwon Province in 1905, after which he opened schools in Kaesong, Pyongyang and Wonsan. Ahn Chang-ho set up Jeomjin School in 1899, the first modern school in the northwest, and started Daeseong School in 1907. And Yi Sung-hun established Osan School in Jeongju, North Pyongan Province, in 1907.

Although I don't know what scores the president, prime minister and deputy premier might have gotten, the Cheong Wa Dae 386ers would evidently have scored zero. For had they known these historical facts, they wouldn't have bungled the nation's education system so much.

Between 1905 when Korea was deprived of its diplomatic rights under the Eulsa Treaty and 1910 when the nation was colonized by Japan, thousands of schools were established in every nook and corner of the country.

The phenomenon was spurred by idea that the only way for the country to rebuild
and regain its independence was to train talented students with awareness and
savvy of world affairs. It's lamentable that the awakening didn't come 50 years
or at least 30 years earlier. That gap of 50 or 30 years resulted in the
nation's ruin. Observing the fruits of good education and the harm from bad
education requires the passage of time. People may regret their misfortunes
after years of bad education has ruined their country, but by then it's too
late.

What is our situation like today, 100 years after we had to suffer such grievances? In the past five years this administration has failed to develop a single elementary school, middle school, high school or university that can compete with their counterparts overseas. Instead it has crushed our budding talents. It has exhausted the national coffers by swelling the number of civil servants by 60,000 and building dozens of administrative offices in empty fields. It has been obsessed by a mistaken belief that shortening the tall and lengthening the small means equality, and that that is the objective of education.

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!