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University rankings are published every year by various newspapers and educational institutions, and they vary significantly from country to country. Rankings can be based on "quality," statistics, or on surveys of educators, scholars, students, prospective students, or others, and they can be extremely influential for students who are choosing which schools to apply to. However, such rankings have been criticised, since many people feel that they are based on criteria unimportant to education itself (especially wealth and reputation). Some have even suggested that the ranking-formulae are designed to keep a few key institutions at the top of the chart. Other critics claim that the quality of a college or university cannot be expressed in numbers. .
The fact remains, however, that world rankings are seen as significant, especially in Korea, where the reputation of the university is often the most important factor for educators, students, parents, and employers. Such a perception leads to the question of why it is that even the "best" universities in Korea never make it inside the top 150?
We might ask why Korean universities should be expected to perform at a world level. Korea is much smaller than the USA, and therefore shouldn't be compared with it. However, Korea is also one of the Asian economic tigers, and has made great leaps in the past 50 years. Despite the current recession, its economy is stronger than that of the USA, which has its largest financial deficit ($8 x 1012) since the stock market crash of 1929. Finally, Korean students typically perform excellently when they go abroad to study. In other words, Korean students consistently outperform western students when placed in the same learning situation.
As mentioned in the "Society" article of this issue of The KNU Times, Korean students have an amazing work ethic, supported by an extremely strong family committment to education. Because of this, the amount of time Korean high school students spend studying is inconceivable for students in the west. There is no way (for example) that a teacher in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, or NZ could ask students to work all day, every day, and to have only 4 or 5 hours of sleep, just to pass a national test. It is no exaggeration to say that students would simply refuse.
We now have two contradictory facts: i) Korean universities are not performing to a satisfactory level as defined by world rankings; and ii) Korean students are universally accepted as some of the most hard working students in the world. What picture does this combination describe? How is it possible to have such excellent students, without producing world results?
My own view is that Korean education focuses on low-order thinking skills, and that most learning in Korea is memory-based. Students who get the top results in the KSAT (university entrance exam) are those with the best memories. Thus, there is a race in high school to spend as much time as possible digesting facts (those who learn the most facts win). However, it has been shown that even the "successful" students in this system are not able to transfer those facts when they get a job; they are not able to apply the ideas they have memorized. In other words, high-order thinking skills such as problem-solving and critical thinking have been "burned out" of these students, who are only able to repeat what they have been told to learn.
A further irony is that all these "facts" which students unblinkingly absorb are freely available in books and on the Internet. In addition, the space taken up in the brain by such trivia makes it harder to develop higher-order thinking skills. This is why schools in the west focus more on application of ideas. When taking a Mathematics exam in the UK, for example, it is normal for all the relevant formulae to be given to the students in a test-book, and for calculators to be available. The exam questions then pose problems which require higher-order thinking to solve. Students must know how to use the formulae. There is no prize for simple memory-based repetition.
This situation has been described many times, by many people, who often conclude that "Korean students cannot think for themselves." Let us look on the bright side, however. My own experience as an educator is that Korean students are exceptionally good at higher-order thinking, if they are given the opportunity to do so. Herein lies my analysis of the world ranking problem. I feel that Korean students are among the best in the world, but that their university life rarely (if ever) requires them to use problem-solving, critical thinking, self-directed (autonomous) learning strategies, and other current educational concepts. How many Korean students follow a process syllabus, or design their own courses? (This is common practice int he west.) How many Korean students are allowed to challenge the ideas of their professors? We must remember that university students represent the next generation of geniuses (where else can geniuses come from?), and they must be challenged, inspired, and motivated to be geniuses - to think thoughts that have never been thought before - to push the boundaries of science and philosophy. This will never happen if they simply enter university "to get a good job" or if their professors continue to use outdated (and pedagogically unsound) teaching methods.
In conclusion, I see Korean universities as having the potential to be the best in the world, simply because their students are extremely diligent and committed to education. The challenge now is for the universities to "put their own house in order" and to encourage real higher-order thinking - the original purpose of university life - through contemporary educational methods.
By, Dr. Andrew E. Finch (Professor, English laguage education)
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