Education in South Korea is viewed

Education in South Korea is viewed as being crucial for success and competition is, consequently, very heated and fierce.[2][3] A central administration oversees the process for the education of children from kindergarten to the third and final year of high school. Mathematics, science, Korean, English, and social studies are generally considered to be the most important subjects.[4] Normally physical education is not considered important as it is not recognised, by the generally academic elitist South Korean populace, as education and therefore many schools lack high-quality gymnasiums and varsity athletics. South Korea was the first country in the world to provide high-speed internet access to all primary, junior, and high schools.[5]
Although South Korean students often rank highly on international comparative assessments when compared to students of most Western education systems, the South Korean education system is criticised for emphasising too much upon passive learning and memorisation. The South Korean education system is rather notably strict and overly structured as compared to its counterparts in most Western societies. Also, the prevalence of non-school for-profit private institutes such as academies or cram-schools (Hagwon [학원]), which emphasise too much on passive memorisation, as opposed to conceptual understanding, in students are criticised as a major social problem.