[Insight & Opinion] From a Competitive Society Where Only a Few Survive to a Society of Individuality for All

Pursuing the Same Opportunities:
Good Universities, Good Jobs, and High Income
A Society Concentrated on Uniform Goals
The Need for Diversified Standards of Success

There are two learning environments in Korea: schools and hagwons (private academies). Most students attend school for more than 16 years and spend nearly 16 years attending hagwons, starting even before entering elementary school. Throughout their childhood and adolescence filled with dreams, they spend over 12 hours every day at school and hagwons for 16 years.

Why do they go to school and hagwons? The main reason is to achieve good academic performance. And for this purpose, hagwons are considered better than schools. As long as hagwons exist, the reason for schools’ existence inevitably comes into question.

What is the result of everyone studying so hard? The number of so-called top universities and popular majors is limited. Only a few achieve their goals, and most students find it difficult to enter their desired institutions. Therefore, the number of students retaking the college entrance exam or transferring after admission is increasing. Among the 505,000 candidates for the 2024 College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT), 160,000 are repeaters. One out of three is a repeater.

In Korea, success is summarized as attending a good university, having a good job, and earning a high income. Thus, both parents and children focus all their efforts on grades, university, and employment. However, the number of these “good” things is extremely limited. Since everyone pursues the same goals, the inevitable outcome for our society is the achievement of a few and the disappointment of the majority.

A society where only a few succeed is not a good society. We must now break free from this. Every individual is precious. Society should be one where all members are happy and successful. When we think about how to achieve this, it is actually not difficult. We are just anxious and afraid because we have never tried.

A good society is one where its members feel happy, and for that, the society must above all have many opportunities. However, in our society, people feel that there are not many opportunities. This is because it has become a society of concentrated opportunities. Everyone pursues the same opportunities: good universities, good jobs, and high income. In this situation, a majority who fail to achieve their goals is inevitable.

Diligence, passion, and hard work are common DNA traits of Koreans. This excellent DNA should be expressed in a way that allows everyone to be happy. To do so, we must move beyond a concentrated society to a society of individuality. Instead of being swept away by the uniform and standardized values and success criteria of the world, we should seek diversified success standards that suit each person and pursue opportunities differently from others.

First, it is important for parents to change their mindset. The good academic performance they so desire for their children is just one of many talents. We must first look at our children’s individuality and talents beyond studying. We need to constantly talk about and explore our children’s interests, aptitudes, and dreams together. If we truly want our children’s happiness and success.

The students’ own thoughts are also important. They themselves are the protagonists and owners of their lives. Let’s carefully think about what our strengths and talents are besides grades. Finding our own success criteria based on our strengths is the true path to success for ourselves.

Let us break free from the uniform, competition-based, concentrated society where only a few survive, and nurture each person’s different individuality, talents, potential, and possibilities. As a result, the number of diverse opportunities in our society will increase, and it will become a better society where everyone is happy. Let’s create a society where 50 million different dreams suited to each individual are dreamed and realized. This is the new Korea we should dream of.

Kim Hyungon, Director of the National Assembly Future Institute