It′s being praised, but also called obsessive...
Korea′s education fever.
To quell the thirst for more and better education, Korean education companies are constantly
upgrading their materials.
For a look at how Korea′s education content providers are expanding into the global arena...
here′s our Kwon Soa with this week′s Industry Insight.
"The school bell doesn′t signal the end of the day for many Korean students.
They are out of their classrooms, but private tutors are waiting for them.
This nearly 30-billion dollar industry has given birth to advanced learning products.
And some of them are finding their way overseas."
Combine the eagerness of Korean parents to educate their children at the earliest age
possible... and the craze for English, and it′s no wonder the English education market
for young children is booming.
Tuntun English publishes story books for preschoolers in China and Thailand.
They say Korea is 10 to 20 years ahead of many other Asian countries when it comes to
teaching English as a foreign language.
Jeongsang Language School recently signed a contract with major U.S. book distributor
IPG, and its products recorded sales of around 20-thousand U.S dollars in their first two
months on Amazon.
Experts say assessing the current market volume is difficult, but Professor Lee Hyun-chong
of Hanyang University estimates it′s in the tens of millions of dollars and has doubled
in the span of a year.
"Korea already has a good image as a very strong educational country all over the world.
Plus, we have very strong IT techniques, so IT-based learning teaching packages and content
development are really attractive to foreign countries.
Combine these two, and we could easily have a second Korean Wave an educational wave."
Chungdahm Learning has integrated IT into its curriculum.
Its flagship program, Loudclass, is a tablet PC-based platform created for interactive
studying purposes, in which students′ responses can be shared and teachers can lead classes
through a tablet PC.
It also allows teachers to customize their own content.
"There are a lot of countries or school districts that have tablets.
But they don′t know how to use tablets.
It′s like having a car without an engine.
It looks great, but that′s the only factor that goes in.
So we′re creating this engine that helps students, it helps the teachers, it helps
the parents."
And the company is sharing the platform with the world.
Recently Chungdahm kicked off a Loudclass pilot program in Thailand.
"The world is so small, connected with the ICT.
We think that having more and more experiences from outside will benefit to our students."
Comparing Thailand and Korea′s curriculum from the same grade, the president of IPST
says there are some strong topics Thailand does not have yet... and should be benchmarking
from Korea,... especially in terms of math and sciences.
This is why industry observers note that, in order to go global,