The Korean school system has six years of primary school, three years of
middle school, and three years of high school. However, these three
branches are disconnected from one another. Primary school teachers and
secondary school teachers are trained separately and only collaborate with
others within their school system; currently, national curriculum
frameworks for each school system are produced separately. The Korean
Constitution and educational laws also perpetuate the separation and
mismatch of the three branches.
This mismatching has caused many problems in Korean education. To
solve these problems, we examined the realities of the legal and
institutional aspects of the educational systems, and the struggles of
integrating small-scale schools in rural areas. In addition, we investigated
the Finland’s basic comprehensive school system due to their success in
creating a school system that matches teacher supply and curriculum
frameworks.
In conclusion, Korea needs to create a vision and set new goals for its
nine year compulsory education system, and strive to build unity and
matching between the three educational branches in the areas of legal
regulations, teacher training and teacher supply, and curriculum.