Moral Education in Korea

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The Status and Perspective of Moral Education in Korea * Yong Lin Moon Department oj Education I. Introduction There seems to be no country like Korea, where moral education is so emphasized in the formal education system. Every student has to take moral education classes two hours a week during 12 years of his/her stay, from primary to senior high school. Moral education class is required for all students by the centralized curriculum of moral education. The textbooks are made and provided exclusively by the Ministry of Education. In primary schools (6 years), pupils are offered two moral education textbooks (a main textbook and a story book) every semester for 6 years. In Middle (3 years) and High (3 years) schools, all the students are provided one or three moral education textbooks every year. Until the late 1980s, moral education was also required as a test of qualification for selecting not only governmental officials but also private companies' employees. At that time all the students going abroad for study had to pass a test of national ethics. Moral education in Korea is guided by the legal document of national curriculum enacted by the central government (the Ministry of Education). In the curriculum, every aspect of moral education is specified in detail: the aims, objectives, teaching methods, contents [lists of virtues}, evaluation, and allocation of time for every grade level and school. The year of 1945 is considered as a watershed for dividing traditional (Confucian) and modern (western) moral education in *This article was presented at the 2nd International Conference on Moral Education at Kashiwa-shi, Chiba, Japan in August, 1995. 2 THE SNU JOURNAL OF EDUCATION RESEARCH Korea (Moon, 1990). It was after 1945 that a westernized compulsory school system was established and moral education was taught nationwide with a clear
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