A Steep Staircase Called Order
The Landscape of Korean Education
※ This essay is a personal record based on observations by a Korean who has spent many years living abroad, looking back at Korean society through the distance created by time and place. Korean society appears in diverse forms depending on region, generation, and environment, and the perspective presented here does not claim to represent all Koreans.
The Secret Behind the Midnight Lights
Late at night, lights stay on across the city’s skyline.
Not in office buildings—but at desks where children are studying.
People seeing this for the first time often ask: “Do children really study at this hour?”
The answer is simple. The explanation is not.
In many of Korea’s major school districts, these lights aren’t exceptional. They’re simply part of the day, stretched longer.
Some call it excessive. Others call it dedication.
But walk quietly beneath those windows and a different feeling emerges. This isn’t just about individual willpower. It feels more like a system that’s been running for decades—machinery that everyone has learned to work around.
The Only Rope Thrown Over the Ruins
In Korea, education was never just a personal choice. It was a structural necessity from the start.
Not so long ago, this society had few options. A Confucian order lasting over five centuries collapsed. Colonial rule gave way to war. What remained was devastated land and a country starting over from nothing.
There was little to rely on: no accumulated wealth, no natural resources, no technological foundation. Almost the only thing that could be passed to the next generation was people themselves.
So education wasn’t simply about acquiring knowledge. It was closer to a rope thrown across ruins—something the next generation could hold on to.
In those difficult years, parents bent their backs to become stepping stones for their children. Education became more than personal advancement. It meant family survival and a path toward social standing.
The belief that fairness required the same starting line and the same rules likely grew from that reality. At the time, those shared standards were almost the only thing people felt they could trust.
A Cold Order That Offers Reassurance
This system started with nothing, but through education it created countless success stories.
Nearly eighty years have passed. Korea today looks nothing like that postwar landscape. Still, the memory of that era remains embedded in daily rhythms.
The entire year is shaped by this rhythm, building toward the Suneung—the eight-hour national college entrance exam that determines not just university placement, but often a student’s entire social trajectory. Around 10 p.m. in Daechi-dong—Seoul’s most intense private education district—narrow streets fill with cars, hazard lights blinking as if on cue. Children stream out of hagwons (private academies) like a receding tide, and parents collect bags and load them into trunks in a silent, practiced ritual.
For many outsiders, this is where understanding breaks down.
Not the difficulty of the exams, but the sheer amount of time poured into learning—stretching well beyond regular school hours and continuing even when exams aren’t looming.
Within this flow, private education stops being a choice. It becomes something you endure. For many households, education costs rival rent or mortgages. Parents cut back on their own lives and climb this staircase alongside their children.
Even when the cost feels crushing, one thought settles the decision: “If we stop here, won’t my child be at a disadvantage?”
What held this system together for so long was the reassurance that order provided. Exams may be unforgiving, but the standards apply to everyone. There’s comfort in believing that time and effort won’t betray you.
The stricter the system, the more people rely on knowing what to expect.
Where Anxiety Leads Us
Recently, though, the staircase itself has started to look different.
More voices are saying the system pushes children in a single direction. That families who can afford more tutoring gain increasing advantages. That in an age shaped by artificial intelligence, this approach stifles rather than nurtures creativity.
Warnings that university rankings might be losing their meaning no longer surprise anyone.
What’s striking is that these doubts aren’t coming only from critics outside the system. They’re voiced by parents who have invested the most, and by students who have already passed through it.
In recent years, another scene has become common. Across major cities, top students crowd in front of a narrow door: medical school.
When the future feels uncertain, students gravitate toward paths that seem safe and predictable.
This concentration draws concern about students avoiding science and engineering, along with criticism that sounds almost like blame.
At the same time, people look with quiet envy at peers in the United States, China, or India—young people entering technical fields and helping build new industries.
Beneath these contrasts lies something more fundamental. A small country. A dense population. Limited resources and few cushions against risk. A sense that the future can’t be easily promised.
Perhaps that unease has continued pushing education toward whatever direction appears safest.
The Question That Remains
For nearly eighty years since liberation, this society has been running without pause. Growth was real. Achievements were undeniable.
Now, the shadows cast by that speed are becoming harder to ignore.
Pressure creates density. Order promises a predictable tomorrow. Expectations keep rising.
Yet more people are unsure whether this steep staircase must continue the same way.
In a landscape where everyone is running, even pausing for a moment feels like falling behind.
Looking at windows that stay lit long after midnight, one question lingers.
Not only where this order came from, but how much longer it can hold.