Teacher-Student Ratios, and Postpartum Care: Inadequate Childcare and Falling Birthrates in the Korean Media, Part 1

Despite all the frustrations of learning Korean, one advantage of learning it in Korea is that once you learn a new word then you really do suddenly notice it everywhere. And some things more than others: until I knew the Korean for all the various kinds of health clinics for instance, I had absolutely no idea of the unbelievable numbers of them here. So similarly, after I rekindled an interest in Korea’s low birthrate by posting on it a whole 6 days ago, today I’ve been deluged (relatively) with a whole 4 articles on it. But don’t worry: after my last epic, even I think that putting them all together as one post would be a tad too much, so I’ll split them into 3 posts, which I won’t be able to do all tonight. Sorry.

Actually two of the articles are in English, from the Korea Herald, which I’m not going to do much more than cut and paste for your perusal here. Sure, I did have a guilty conscience about it for a good two seconds or so, but then the Korea Herald allows access to its articles only to subscribers after only a week or so, so the articles wouldn’t be very useful to anyone if I didn’t. That week cut-off may seem a bit harsh, but I’d estimate a good 90-95% of readers are Koreans using the paper to learn English rather read about news per se, and if they pay for the service then there’s lots of gizmos available at the paper’s website to study old articles with, so me pasting their articles here is hardly likely to interfere with their business model then. Also, despite their target audience being more concerned about the news being in English then its quality per se, if you live in Korea then to keep the Herald off my back I’d actually recommend buying the paper these days…no really…for it definately used to be a heap of crap (you should have seen it in 2000!) but has genuinely improved in recent years, and it’s good for keeping up with events here. Actually I used to subscribe to it myself, but what with my MA, learning Korean, already subscribing to the Economist and the Guardian Weekly, then I could do little but cut out the interesting articles from big piles of them every few weeks (and throw them all out, unread, when I moved apartments 2 weeks ago). With podcasts thrown into the mix, I’ve had the give up the Guardian too…its tough being a geek, dammit.

Here’s the first article anyway. The discrepancy in dates means it’ll be published tomorrow I guess:

Fewer students, more teachers and schools

The falling birth rate significantly shrank the number of students under age 15, but schools and teachers steadily increased, Education Ministry data showed yesterday.

The educational statistics regarding kindergarten, elementary and middle schools revealed that the number of students showed a sharp annual decrease from 8.49 million in 2000 to 8.32 million in 2006 and 8.27 million this year.

The number of schools increased from 18,449 in 2000 to 19,241 in 2007. This total has almost doubled in more than two decades, from 10,841 in 1980.

The total number of teachers also saw a continuous increase from 365,000 in 2000 to 429,000 in 2007.

Due to a temporary rise in the birth rate in 2000, 608,000 students entered elementary school this year, an increase of 3,000 students, compared to 2006.

But the total number of elementary school students dropped by more than 65 percent, from 5.74 million in 1970 to 3.92 million in 2006 and 3.83 million in 2007, according to the data.

The student-to-teacher ratio has been lowered. There are about 22.9 students per teacher at elementary schools, and 19.1 students per teacher at middle schools this year, whereas there were 47.5 students per teacher in elementary schools, and 45.1 students per teacher in middle schools in 1980.

The number of teachers increased from 154,000 in 1970 to 228,000 in 1980 to 429,000 this year.

By age, there was a large jump in the number of teachers between 25 to 35 years old over the past decade, but the average age of teachers is getting higher. Teachers at elementary schools averaged 39.9 years old, and middle school teachers, 40.5 years old, this year.

There are more teachers with higher degrees; 26.2 percent have obtained a master’s degree, and 0.7 percent have received a doctoral degree, ministry officials said.

It was also found that 99.3 percent of students advance into elementary school, while 96 percent go to middle school, and 91.3 percent move on to high school.

By Cho Ji-hyun

(sharon@heraldm.com)

2007.09.13

The Korea Herald is good for basic statistics, but like most papers these days (of any country), it can be bad for placing them in any kind of context. If student numbers are going down, why on Earth are teacher numbers going up? The reason is, like I’ve mentioned briefly in posts earlier, that with Korea going from the having the lowest number of irregular, short-term, benefits-lacking jobs in the OECD upon entrance to the organization in 1996 to the highest today, then teaching, along with jobs in Chaebol and the civil service, are considered one of the few safe, secure jobs-for-life available out there. Moreover, like jobs in the civil service, teaching is especially attractive to Korean women, because the strict exam requirements for the civil service and women’s already great numbers in teaching mean that they are relatively meritocratic by Korean standards.

The next article will also be in tomorrow’s paper:

Postpartum care centers no longer safe

The sanitary standards at the nation`s postpartum care centers have been called into question, as the latest government data shows a growing number of newborn babies are contracting infections, and, in two cases, this has resulted in death.

Rep. Ahn Myung-ok of the Grand National Party yesterday unveiled a report by the Health and Welfare Ministry that showed a total of 19 babies were infected during their stay at postpartum care centers in the past five years, including eight diarrhea cases.

The figure has been steeply rising since last year. The number of reported baby infections at newborn care centers had stayed at one or two per year until 2005, then went up to eight in 2006, and seven as of June this year.

In addition, the Korea Food & Drug Administration identified 28 of 454 postpartum care centers as having poor sanitary conditions. More than a majority of them were caught with products that were past their expiration dates, while some eight clinics failed to ensure that their employees wore hygenic caps.

“The reasons why there are constant occurrences of infection and safety incidents at postpartum care centers are the poor sanitary checkups and facility management, and the manpower shortage,” Ahn said yesterday to the parliamentary Committee on Health and Welfare.

According to the Korea Consumer Agency, a total of 41 petitions were filed against postpartum care centers. Seventeen of them were regarding allegedly unfair contracts, and nine involved safety incidents.

By Ahn Hyo-lim

(iamhyol@heraldm.com)

2007.09.13

Again, if you remember what I said in this post about certain departments of the civil service being woefully short of staff and resources because they are considered a priority, then incidents like this make much more sense…and much scarier: my wife and I are planning to have a second child here late next year.

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::