Korean Equality Starts Early

Kim Jae-hee walked into the chilly gymnasium of Younghoon Elementary School and sized up the competition.

The parents of 550 six- and seven-year-old boys were there, some from South Korea's wealthiest families, waiting for a shot at getting their child into the prestigious private school renowned for an English-language program not seen in public schools.

Through the morning, parents walked one by one to the front of the gym, pulled a foil-covered wooden ball from a purple-and-green box, and unwrapped it. If the ball was blue, their sons got in. About one of every eight balls was blue.

Admission to private elementary schools in South Korea has nothing to do with money or academic ability. Under government order, the nation's 76 private schools hold lotteries at the same time on the same day each December -- boys in the morning, girls in the afternoon -- to fill first-grade seats for the start of the school year the following March.

'It's totally up to luck,' Ms. Kim said. 'That creates stress.'

The process is a collision of the South Korean passion for education and the desire in this mostly homogenous society for social and economic equality. The equality drive is partly a modern-day backlash against the class system that governed the Korean peninsula for centuries until it was colonized by Japan in the early 20th century. An often-cited Korean aphorism runs, 'If my cousin buys land, I get a stomach ache.'

The government ordered private schools to admit students by lottery in 1971, and it levels out entry requirements at South Korea's universities by making them consider not just test scores but grades, activities and where students are from. At South Korean companies, many employers pay workers based on seniority rather than merit to avoid controversies over fairness.

Even the leading candidates in this month's presidential election faced restrictions. Campaign posters were equally sized and couldn't stand alone. Posters for all 12 candidates were taped up together on street corners and on the sides of highways.

'Equal opportunity gives everyone a very good feeling,' said Lew Seok-choon, a sociology professor at Yonsei University in Seoul. 'At the same time, people want their life to be a success, which means you need competition. This is a universal conflict.'

For the administrators of private schools, the restrictions on admissions and tuition make it harder to make their institutions stand out. Fees are about $4,000 to $8,000 a year, and schools can only raise them with the approval of their parents' association.

Jung Jin-hae, president of the South Korea Association of Private Schools, said the group has urged the government for years to let private schools set tuition and pick their own students, which he said would lead to greater diversity among schools.

'In a forest, there are tall and short and thick and thin trees,' said Mr. Jung, who is also the principal at a private school in Seoul. 'At the moment, they're trying to make a forest with just the same kind of trees.'

For the parents, the stakes are high. Getting in a private school typically exposes a child to specialized classes, such as in a foreign language or art. Younghoon's goal, administrators said, is to produce students who, after leaving sixth grade, could perform as easily in the middle school of an English-speaking country as in a South Korean one.

Most private-school students enter the public system at grade seven -- there are few private schools at that level -- and students must pass an exam to attend a high school where more classes are taught in English. Those 'foreign-language schools' send the most students to South Korea's prestigious universities.

Ms. Kim and her husband said they applied to enroll their son Ji-hoon in Younghoon Elementary despite the prospect of a 45-minute commute. 'We want Ji-hoon to become a global talent, not just a successful one in Korea,' Ms. Kim said.

Shim Mi-Jung, who came to Younghoon later for the afternoon lottery for girls, said she and her husband are so eager for daughter Jung-won to become bilingual that they are considering taking her abroad for a year or two if they don't win a spot in Younghoon.

As Younghoon's popularity rose, the desire for fairness had another effect: zealous scrutiny by parents on the way it conducts its lottery. For more than 20 years, the school had a teacher pick numbers out of a box. In 1995, the school modernized the system and used a computer to randomly choose numbers. But parents complained the software could have been rigged. So Younghoon created a system in which the parents pick the ball, essentially putting the children's fate in their parents' hands.

Parents complained, saying the box wasn't big enough to adequately mix up the balls.

'Sometimes the things the parents come up with just make our mouths drop,' Vice Principal Sim Ok-ryung said.

In a welcome speech on lottery day, Ms. Sim took pains to explain that the balls are all covered with equally sized foil squares. Parents arrived at the school with their children -- a step designed to assure that a family can only take part in the lottery of one school.

The first five parents selected plain wooden balls. 'That's when I started to get really nervous,' Ms. Kim said afterward. A successful parent tried to pass the 'winning vibe' by shaking hands with those who followed.

Ms. Kim was the 219th parent to walk up to the box; 33 of the 72 slots were already filled when she reached in. As two teachers watched closely, she unwrapped a plain ball. She paused briefly, then walked on as a teacher announced, 'Apologies, number 219.'

Outside the school a short time later, Ms. Kim said, 'I can relax now, but it's extremely disappointing because I had my hopes up.'

In the lottery for girls, Ms. Shim mixed the box a little, then pulled out a plain ball. She chided herself for not mixing up the box some more. 'It almost felt like a test,' she said.

Both mothers said they will enroll their children in public school and in after-school academies -- cram programs that supplement public-school educations and are seen as necessary in guiding a child to a top university.

Despite their disappointment, they also said they believe in the process. 'I think the lottery system is fair,' Ms. Kim said. 'Honestly, it's too early to test or set criteria for children who are only seven.'

Kim Jae-hee走进Younghoon小学冷嗖嗖的体育馆，思量着即将到来的一场竞争。

550名六、七岁孩子的家长齐聚于此，其中一些来自韩国最有钱的家族，他们希望自己在抽签时手气够好，能让自己的孩子进入这所颇具声望的私立小学，该学校以其英语教学计划著称，这是公立学校所不能比拟的。

整个上午，家长们依次走向体育馆的前面，从一个紫色和绿色相间的盒子里抽出一个用纸箔包着的小木球，并当众将它打开。如果球是蓝色的，那么他们的儿子就能够入学。差不多每八个球里只有一个蓝色球。

能否入读韩国的私立小学与家庭的财力和孩子的学习能力都没有关系。按政府的规定，该国的76所私立学校在每年12月的同一天、同一时刻进行抽签──男孩上午，女孩下午──来招满第二年3月开学的一年级学生人数。

Kim Jae-hee说：“这完全是靠运气，让人很紧张。”

在韩国这个几乎由单一民族构成的国家中，人们一方面对教育抱有极高的热情，一方面又强烈主张社会和经济的平等；以抽签定教育的过程实则是这两种力量冲撞的产物。在一定程度上，追求平等体现了现代社会对阶级制度的强烈反对，这种制度统治朝鲜半岛长达数百年之久，直到20世纪初期朝鲜沦为日本殖民地之后才有所改观。

1971年，政府下令私立学校以抽签方式招生，还统一了韩国各间大学的入学要求，让它们不只看考分，还要考虑学生的平时成绩、活动以及他们来自什么地方。在韩国公司里，许多老板依据员工的资历而非才干来支付报酬，就是为了避免在公平与否的问题上引发争议。

就算是参加本月总统选举的候选人也面临了诸多限制。竞选海报大小得一致，不能单独张贴。在街角和高速公路旁，所有12名候选人的海报都得贴在一起。

首尔延世大学(Yonsei University)的社会学教授Lew Seok-choon说：“机会均等让所有人都觉得很好。但与此同时，若想生活取得成功，那么竞争就必不可少。这是个普遍矛盾。”

对于私立学校的管理人员来说，对招生和学费的限制令学校难以做到出类拔萃。每年的学费为4000至8000美元，而且学校只有在得到家长联合会批准的情况下才能上调学费。

韩国私立学校协会(Association of Private Schools)会长Jung Jin-hae说，该协会多年来一直要求政府准许私立学校自主设定学费标准和甄选学生。他说这会让学校体系更为多元化。

同时担任首尔一家私立学校校长的Jung Jin-hae说：“森林里的树木总是高矮不一、有密有疏。现在政府是在力图造就一座只有一种树的森林。”

对家长而言，孩子能否进入私立学校事关重大。若能在此就读，孩子往往有机会参加外语或艺术之类的特长班。Younghoon的管理者说，该校的目标是让学生读完六年级毕业以后，能在英语国家的中学里表现得像在韩国学校里一样自如。

许多私立学校的学生到了七年级都会升入公立学校（招收该年龄段学生的私立学校寥寥无几），学生必须通过考试才能升入高中，后者将有更多的课程以英语教学。进入韩国著名高校的学生中，来自那些“外语学校”的学生是最多的。

Kim Jae-hee和太太表示，虽然上学路程要45分钟，但他们仍然为儿子Ji-hoon申请就读Younghoon小学。Kim Jae-hee的太太说：“我们希望Ji-hoon能成为国际型人才，不要只是在韩国取得成功。”

晚些来到Younghoon参加女孩入学抽签仪式的Shim Mi-Jung说，她跟丈夫都渴望让女儿Jung-won精通两种语言，如果这次没能进入Younghoon就读，他们会考虑送女儿出国学习一两年。

随着Younghoon知名度的攀升，对公平的渴望产生了另一方面的影响，那就是家长们都积极地审查起了学校抽签的方式。在1995年之前的20多年时间里，学校都让一位老师从盒子里抽出号码。后来学校在95年时改进了抽签系统，使用电脑随机抽取号码。但家长抗议说软件是可以做手脚的。于是Younghoon想出了一个办法，让家长来抽签，这样基本上是把孩子的命运交到了他们父母的手中。

家长仍然抱怨不已，说盒子不够大，不能充分混合抽签的小球。

副校长Sim Ok-ryung说：“有时家长们说出的话真让我们觉得匪夷所思。”

在抽签仪式上致欢迎辞时，Sim Ok-ryung颇费了番口舌来解释那些小球外面都包着同样大小的方形纸箔。家长带着孩子一起来到学校，这是为了确保一个家庭只能参加一所学校的抽签。

广告打头的五位家长都抽到了素色球。Kim太太后来说，从那时候开始她的心都提到嗓子眼儿了。一位成功的家长还跟后面的人握手以传递好手气。

Kim太太是第219个走向抽签盒的家长；轮到她时，72个入学名额已有33个被抽走了。在两名教师的注视下，她打开了一个素色球。Kim太太稍顿了一下就离开了现场，这时一位老师对她说：“对不起，219号。”

出了学校以后，Kim太太说：“现在可以放松下来了，但还是极度失望，因为期望太高了。”

在针对女孩的抽签中，Shim太太将球搅和了一下，然后抽出了一个素色球。她责怪自己当时没再多搅搅。Shim太太说这感觉简直像参加考试。

两位母亲都表示会让孩子就读公立学校和课外补习班，后者是对公立学校教学进行补充的课程，它被视为是孩子们入读顶级高校的必由之路。

虽然很失望，但两位家长均表示相信抽签过程是公平的。Kim太太说：“我觉得抽签制度是公平的。坦白说，对仅仅7岁大的孩子进行考查或设立什么标准确实为时过早。”