Comparative Education Policy

Alice Escande, Gwimoon Park, Sarah Bensmail, El Ghali Fikri Experiencing tough history and indigence after war, investing in and training human resources became a priority task for the government. Education has thus been key in the reconstruction and growth of the country. While Korea quickly attained high level of enrollment and performance, this success didn’t come without drawbacks. The intense competition in education gradually led to seriously jeopardize student’s well-being. In this context, this presentation will assess and diagnose the strength and weakness of the Korean education system and provide recommendations focusing on the following question: How can Korea combine outstanding academic performance with students’ well-being? by Alice Escande, Gwimoon Park, Sarah Bensmail, El Ghali Fikri Korea case study - Education Policy from G C

Stephanie Hagen During our recent class on trends in comparative education policy, one of the students’ team school improvement presentations focused on the South Korean education system, the extremely heavy pressure it places on students to succeed academically, and approaches to reduce it.  Following the presentation, the class had a lively discussion about how an education system may be able to mitigate this pressure when high expectations are already embedded so deeply in the society or culture.   This reminded me of my own academic experience in the United States since I attended a school district in an extremely multi-cultural community. A majority of the students are of Asian descent and many of them are children of immigrants who have arrived from China, South Korea and India. As the demographics of the community have shifted, so has the school district's approach towards education.  Many of these parents are demanding that the school board provide grea...

Zoé Lerouge These past years, the Project on International Student Assessment (better known as PISA) launched in 2000 has taken more and more importance in the Education Ministers’ agendas throughout the OECD countries. By ranking the countries according to their students’ performances, the international study creates pressure for reforms among numerous policy-makers. To understand more precisely how does PISA works and what it really says about our education systems, we had the pleasure to receive Francesca Borgonovi, policy analyst at the OECD, in our SciencesPo Master of International Affairs Comparative Education Policy class. She revealed to us the inner workings of the famous test. Ms Borgonovi, to set the scene for our readers, could you first tell us more about large-scale educational assessments (LSEAs)? Sure! Large-scale educational assessments, studies containing direct measurements of individuals’ cognitive proficiency, have become an increasingly useful tool to e...