Policy reformer’s dream or nightmare?

Does shadow education discourage or encourage creative thinking? Evidence from South Korea (La educación en la sombra, ¿fomenta o desincentiva el pensamiento creativo? Evidencia de Corea del Sur)

“…To address social concerns about the heavy financial burden resulting from the high costs of shadow education and socioeconomic disparities in access to shadow education, the Korean government has introduced a variety of measures (Byun, 2010; Lee et al, 2010; Schaub et al, 2020). In 1980, for example, the Korean government banned all types of out-of-school tutoring practices, until 2000, when the Constitutional Court ruled that it was unconstitutional (Byun, 2010; Lee et al, 2010; Schaub et al, 2020). In recent years, the Korean government has regulated tuition fees charged by hagwon s and has set a curfew on the hours of their operation (Schaub et al, 2020).…”

Worldwide shadow education and social inequality: Explaining differences in the socioeconomic gap in access to shadow education across 63 societies

“…South Korea: Dawson, 2010; the United States: Mori, 2013), state subsidy systems for less advantageous students to give them the opportunity to also participate in SE (Germany: Entrich and Lauterbach, 2019; Australia: Watson, 2008), state subsidized shadow schools (Japan: Yamato and Zhang, 2017), or private–public partnerships (Zhang and Bray, 2020). However, the findings of this study suggest a different solution to this dilemma: due to the obvious broad social appreciation of both, equality of educational opportunities and private educational investment by the same individuals across societies (Schaub et al, 2020), governmental policies need to more strongly target educational institutional differentiation instead of SE to bring about change.…”

“…Following this line of argument, SE essentially became inevitable and ubiquitous, because it arises out of everything that is valued as common good about the provision of education and because of the increased private interest in education as the “preparer and arbitrator of future success for nearly everyone’s children around the world” (Baker, 2020: 312). It is important to highlight here that both the high esteem of equal educational opportunities and the increasing investment in non-formal, private education are not contradictory because both value the same goal: “the educational development of the individual as a central source for the collective well-being” (Schaub et al, 2020: 1074).…”

“…The relationship between educational attainment, social inequality, and rising parental investments in the non-formal education of children has received increasing attention in recent decades (Bae and Stecher, 2019; Dang and Rogers, 2008; Entrich, 2018; Kornrich and Furstenberg, 2013; Park et al, 2016; Schaub et al, 2020; Schneider et al, 2018; Stevenson and Baker, 1992). As a result, concerns about inequality in educational opportunities and growing class divides sparked debates and led to the introduction of counter-measures such as state-sponsored supplementary education services in several countries (e.g.…”

An inevitable phenomenon: Reflections on the origins and future of worldwide shadow education

“…In a recent essay, my colleagues Maryellen Schaub, Hyerim Kim, Deok‐Ho Jang, and I trace Korean policy for equality in education and national expenditures on shadow education over the last forty years (2020). An education policy‐maker's dream, Korea has strict equalisation of operating expenditures across schools.…”