Throw the window of opportunity wide open

Education must offer fairer opportunities so that it can ease broader socio-economic inequalities and strengthen national capabilities for sustainability and growth.

The rigidity in social stratification eats into the health and vitality of a society. Many empirical studies are devoted to this theme. The Great Gatsby Curve is used to depict the correlation between income equality and inter-generational income mobility. In 2019 Joo Byung-ki, an economics professor of Seoul National University, published a study on the correlation between the education and income levels of parents and their children’s success measured by academic performance. Its conclusion was: The lower the income and education of parents, the lesser the chance of upward mobility and success for their offspring.

The social ladder to move up has long stopped working, and socioeconomic stratification has deepened. A recent study by the Bank of Korea (BOK) highlighted the worsening inequality. Parental wealth and place of residence determine the entries to top universities. Most of those admitted to top universities came from Seoul. In the 2018 admissions to Seoul National University (SNU), 32 percent came from Seoul-based high schools — 12 percent from the posh southern neighborhoods of Gangnam, Seocho and Songpa.

Income condition also dictated the entries to universities. Of the 2010 high school graduates, those coming from the top 20 percent income group entered the top eight universities — and top-score departments of medicine, dentistry, Asian medicine and veterinary medicine — 5.4 times more than those from the bottom 20 percent families.

The results from observing a 7th grader’s potential and chances of entering top universities based on math scores was more shocking. Assuming students’ potentials are the same, the family wealth factor was behind 75 percent of those entering top universities. Simply put, a child coming from a wealthy family in Seoul has a better chance of getting into an elite school. The BOK study draws a dismal picture that the affordability of education defines the gap in entries to elite universities.

The obsession with selective universities feeds the fervor over private education. The burden of education and inequality encompasses all of Korea’s structural problems — worsening low births, concentration around Seoul, sky-high home prices in the capital and the disappearance of rural areas. The country’s future is at stake due to the breakup of the upward ladder and the loss of talents who can drive innovation.

The BOK has proposed increased proportional admissions to elite schools to reflect the ratio of schooling population by region to help mitigate the imbalance. The rigidity in stratification and polarization can’t be solved by a few steps. But education must offer fairer opportunities so that it can ease broader socio-economical inequalities and strengthen national capabilities for sustainability and growth.