Read the text below and answer the questions that
follow.
When is it time to stop studying?
It's 10 p.m. and six government employees are out
checking the streets of Seoul, South Korea. But these
are not police officers searching for teenagers who
are behaving badly. Their mission is to find children
who are still studying. And stop them.
Education in South Korea is very competitive. The aim
of almost every schoolchild is to get into one of the
country’s top universities. Only the students with the
best grades get a place. The school day starts at 8
a.m. and the students finish studying somewhere
between 10 p.m. and 1 a.m. at night. This is because
many go to private academies called hagwon after
school. Around 74 percent of all students attend a
hagwon after their regular classes finish. A year’s
course costs, on average, $2,600 per student. In
Seoul, there are more private tutors than
schoolteachers, and the most popular ones make
millions of dollars a year from online and in-person
classes. Most parents rely on private tutoring to get
their children into a university.
With so much time spent in the classroom, all that
students in South Korean high schools do is study and
sleep. Some of them are so exhausted that they
cannot stay awake the next day at school. It is a
common sight to see a teacher explaining the lesson
while a third of the students are asleep on their desks.
The teachers don’t seem to mind. There are even
special pillows for sale that fit over the arms of the
chairs to make sleeping in class more comfortable.
Ironically, the students spend class time sleeping so
that they can stay up late studying that night.
The South Korean government has been aware of the
faults in the system for some time, but now they have
passed some reforms. Today, schoolteachers have to
meet certain standards or take additional training
courses.
However, the biggest challenge for the government is
the hagwons. Hagwons have been banned from
having classes after 10 p.m., which is why there are
street patrols searching for children who are studying
after that time. If they find any in class, the owner of
the hagwon is punished and the students are sent
home. It's a strange world, where some children have
to be told to stop studying while others are reluctant to
start.
Adapted from: LATHAM-KOENIG, Christina & OXENDEN, Clive.
American English File 3 - Workbook. 2"“ edition. Oxford: OUP,
2014.