Happiness education and the Free Year Program in South Korea

ABSTRACT

Despite the widespread education reform discourses attempting to alleviate high-stakes examination pressure and narrowly test-driven education systems in East Asia, none have been as systematic and drastic as the Free Year Program (FYP) recently implemented in South Korea. The FYP provides middle school students with a year-long reprieve from examinations during which they can pursue other activities outside of the rigid test-oriented curriculum, exploring their career paths, free from the pressures of taking the midterm and final exams. In this article, we explore the contradictions raised by the discourse promoting the FYP within the broader national ‘Happiness Education’ framework. The FYP frequently references foreign cases, and articulates a national imaginary caught in between multiple competing agendas: the cultivation of a modern neoliberal subject in pursuit of their own happiness versus a collective nationalistic agenda in pursuit of global competitiveness, and multiple competing Western-inspired and domestic education discourses.

摘要

尽管东亚地区普遍存在试图缓解高赌注的考试压力和狭隘的应试教育制度的教育改革论调，但没有一个像韩国近期实施的“自由学年计划”（FYP）那样的系统和彻底。该计划为中学生提供了为期一年的免考期，在此期间，他们可以在僵化的应试课程之外从事其他活动，探索自己的职业发展道路，摆脱参加期中和期末考试的压力。在本文中，我们探讨了在国家‘幸福教育’的框架下推广“自由学年计划”的话语所引发的矛盾。该计划经常引用国外案例，并阐述了一个夹在多重竞争议程之间的国家想象：培养一个追求自身幸福的现代新自由主义的主体，还是追求全球竞争力的集体民族主义议程，以及多种相互竞争的受西方启发的和国内的教育话语。

KEYWORDS:

• Educational transfer/borrowing
• South Korea
• education policy
• education quality
• development
• globalisation
• neoliberalism

关键词:

• 教育转移/借鉴
• 韩国
• 教育政策
• 教育质量
• 发展
• 全球化
• 新自由主义

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Correction

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 We will refer to this programme as FYP from this point onward.

2 Will be referred to as ‘Korea’ from this point onward.

3 The Free Year Program was first mentioned during President Park’s campaign in November, 2012, and was selected as a national project in January, 2013, to be implemented for a full semester initially. It was piloted in 42 pioneering schools in 2013, expanded progressively to 2551 schools by 2015, and launched in 2016. Almost half of all middle schools (46%) chose to participate for the first year (MoE 2017), during which those middle school students spent a full year pursuing activities outside of the traditional curriculum.

Additional information

Funding

This work was partly supported by the Yonsei University Research Grant of 2020.

Notes on contributors

Sung won Kim

Sung won Kim is Assistant Professor of Comparative Education at Yonsei University at the Department of Education, Seoul, South Korea. Her research and teaching interests include international and comparative education, China’s economic reforms and education, cultural perspectives on parenting and child socialisation.

Lois Y. Kim

Lois Y. Kim received an Ed.M. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and was a secondary school math teacher in the U.S. and South Korea. Her research interests include student learning support and teaching practice in comparative perspectives.