CARNEY: It’s famous for its youth culture and wacky pop videos. In the land of k-pop and the economic miracle, making it to the top is a national obsession. But there’s a flip side to all this fun. Students are coached to the point of exhaustion.

HUH JAE WOO: “There just isn’t me. Who I am is just lost”.

CARNEY: Failure is not an option.

FEMALE STUDENT: “There’s a lot of psychological pressure”.

CARNEY: The country may be booming, but what’s all this pressure doing to the kids? Cha Gil Young looks every bit the k-pop star, sharing the limelight with South Korea’s biggest idols – inspiring students as they’re about to take their make or break final exams. 

SONG LYRICS: “Even when sleep as sweet as candy tempts you, fight it, endure it, you can’t fall, give it all! Fantastic marks and the uni you’ve dreamed of, miracle is getting closer. Give it all!”

CARNEY: In education obsessed South Korea, Cha is a top ranked maths teacher and here that makes him a celebrity – with an annual income of 8 million dollars. He doesn’t actually teach in a bricks and mortar school. He’s made his fortune running an online cram school or Hagwon, part of the country’s thriving 20 billion dollar private education business. 

CHA KIL YOUNG: [on mobile phone in car] “Hello, did you call me – yeah?”

CARNEY: We’re catching up with Cha on a typical day as he gets ready to record a lecture. 

CHA KIL YOUNG: “Many students spend more than two hours a day listening to online lectures. They feel that they spend a lot of time with us. It’s like when you see someone famous, and you’d like to go and talk to them. The students want to get close to us – the teachers who really explain things”.

CARNEY: First up he gets his make-up done. Then the hair. Today it’s the firecracker style. Cha says his students, his fans, like it this way. And it’s on to his studio for the performance.

[walking into studio] “So this is your office? It’s impressive.”

CHA KIL YOUNG: “This is our lab… most people here are researching maths”.

CARNEY: Cha has a variety of props – masks, costumes and wigs he’ll wear depending on his mood. Entertainment is a fundamental part of the learning process.

CHA KIL YOUNG: “I try to entertain them and keep them from falling asleep by wearing these wigs. Students really enjoy it and don’t nod off”.

[getting ready to tape lesson] “This is just going to be quick!”

CARNEY: But it’s a very serious business. Cha’s main focus is the SE7ENEDU website, which has 3 million registrations and at any one time 300,000 students will be logged on. They pay 30 dollars a month for access. 

CHA KIL YOUNG: [begins taping of his lesson] “Hello, I’m Cha Kil Young, the wizard of maths!”

CARNEY: He’s recorded 1500 hours of math’s lectures for all grades, ranging from the conceptual, to tips on how to get better exam results. 

CHA KIL YOUNG: [taping his lesson] “In this particular equation, what did I tell you? You need to get your ‘ex’s’ together!”

CARNEY: Cha wants to revolutionise education, bring it online and make it much more accessible.

CHA KIL YOUNG: [taping of lesson] “I’m busy, so I’ll do one, you should do the other 99 yourselves!”

[promotion of Cha Kil Young’s website]: “No more regrets, now your time begins. You will be reborn”.

CARNEY: In South Korea education has become a sought after commodity. Cha’s Seven EDU is promoted like the latest movie block buster.

[promotion of Cha Kil Young’s website]: “We will be victorious”. 

CARNEY: And Cha is building an empire – ultimately he plans to go global.

CHA KIL YOUNG: “There are so many kids being left behind in Asia, you know. The goal of our company is to use the strength of online education, keep the costs down, and provide kids with good quality online content”.

CARNEY: In the up market area of Gangnam in Seoul it’s 7.30 am and Kim Seo Hyeong is just beginning her day. She’s in her critical final year, preparing for the CSAT test or Suneung - an exam that will determine her future. 

KIM SEO HYEONG: “Everyone works hard in Korea. So you think a lot about how you also need to work just as hard as people around you”.

CARNEY: South Korean education is the envy of the rest of the world, regularly topping international tests in maths and literacy and that’s because these students study hard – on average they’ll do 15 hours a day. 

[in class and students are asleep on desk] It’s the first lesson of the day. Some of these kids have been at Hagwons or cram school until ten or eleven o’clock the night before. 

Seo Hyeong is a model student at one of Seoul’s highest ranking public schools. She’s gone from 150th to being in the top five.

KIM SEO HYEONG: “I’d like to go to a really good, very well-known university because that’s what I’ve been working towards. The better known it is, the easier it will be for me to do what I want to do”.

CARNEY: She regularly meets with her form teacher to make sure she’s on track.

PARK HYUN SUN [Teacher]: “Here, this is the usual way to get in”. 

CARNEY: A place at the right university will mean a good job and hopefully a good marriage. 

PARK HYUN SUN: [explaining to student] “To apply for that you’ll need the highest grade. This is how it works”. 

“I think students in Korea, not only high school students but also middle school, and even primary school students are under a lot of study stress. But they mostly understand that whether they get pressure from their parents or from their school, it’s for their own good later in life”.

CARNEY: There’s little time to hang out with friends. Lunchtime is one of the few opportunities they get to socialise. But friends can also be competitors. 

KOREAN GIRL #1: “I think there should be some competition but it can become too much. Kids get very stressed too”.

CARNEY: For this group, even their best is never good enough.

KOREAN GIRL #2: “You get compared, and because everyone does so well, I feel pressured to do better. There’s a lot of psychological pressure”.

KOREAN GIRL #3: “Because I’m the oldest daughter, my parents tend to demand more of me to do better”.

CARNEY: When school ends at four o’clock, it’s not time to go home. The next shift starts and most will go on to cram schools.

Seo Hyeong heads off to study on her own. It’s tough but in South Korea this is normal. She knows just one wrong answer in the CSAT exam can mean success or failure in life and in preparation she is tested and retested. She doesn’t leave for home until just before 11 pm.

KIM SEO HYEONG: “I really feel frustrated when I make mistakes. I even cry. But I tend to forget bad things quickly and believe I’ll do better in the next exam”.

CARNEY: And across Seoul and the country 100,000 Hagwons are about to close. In this street there’s about a dozen Hagwons and they’re still going on. The government is sending out patrols to try and enforce closing times and they’ve even tried to ban Hagwons, but with every attempt to rein them in, they just seem to come back bigger and stronger than ever. 

On the weekend we catch up with Seo Hyeong’s mum, Nam Seon Ju. She has taken the difficult decision not to put her daughter into a cram school.

NAM SEON JU: “Education has become corporatised. There are so many educators now. When we were students, studying at school was all we did. So when I go to those cram schools, even I can see their attraction. I don’t send my child to one but when I visit them, I feel that maybe her results aren’t improving because I don’t send her. I feel torn”.

CARNEY: Huh Jae Woo is making his way to the Jong-ro Academy, an elite cram school. He has to make every moment count – even as he walks to the school he’s preparing for the first test of the day. The 19 year old was on track for a place at one of South Korea’s top universities but he missed out by just 2 marks last year. So he’s taking the CSAT again to make sure he’ll get in this time around.

HUH JAE WOO: “I’ve heard when people apply for jobs at one of the top companies, they get all these CVs, right? First they lay out everyone’s CV on the floor, then they put the CVs with the name of good universities on them to one side, while the CVs without good universities go straight into the bin. I guess that’s why everyone wants to go to good universities”.

CARNEY: Even to get into this cram school is a feat in itself. Only 1 in 50 pass the entrance exam. Students are tested endlessly and drilled for 12 hours a day.

HUH JAE WOO: “It don’t think it makes sense – even though I did okay myself – that just one exam, taking place once a year, should divide students like this. Because when I look around me, I don’t think the kids who went to good universities because they scored well in the CSAT, are that much better than the students who didn’t get in”.

TEACHER: [to students] “This is a dream. What is this dream? Where is the main character?” 

HUH JAE WOO: “There just isn’t me. Every now and then I want to play soccer, listen to music or read a book - but when I want to do some of these things in the middle of preparing for the exams, everyone around me says, ‘You’re a student preparing for uni exams, you should be studying’. So when I’m prepping for exams, who I am is just lost”.

CARNEY: The cram school has 5 floors with 20 classrooms on each. There are regular patrols to make sure they all stay awake and that conditions are perfect for studying. If he’s lucky, Jae Woo will be in bed by midnight, ready to repeat the process again tomorrow. At the subway he can finally unwind just for a while. 

All this study and hard work has paid off for the country. From the destitution of the 1960s, it’s been transformed into a booming high tech industrial powerhouse that exports phones, cars and video games. Just over 10 years ago, South Korea joined the trillion dollar club of world economies. Now it’s the 12th largest. 

For those who don’t succeed, there’s a tragic cost. South Korea has the highest rate of suicide in the world. It’s growing the fastest among 10 to 19 year olds. 

This is one of the few places that’s been set up to save young lives. It’s the start of the day at Silim Shelter and two boys who’ve come in overnight are being introduced. There’s a lack of counselling for kids in South Korea. Tragically some see suicide as the only option. 

PARK YOUN HEE: “The lack of alternatives in our country, leave them with no other choice but to choose that”.

CARNEY: This 18 year old boy ran away from home because he couldn’t live up to the family’s expectations. 

BOY: “My grandfather graduated from Seoul National University and went to a good high school. And I went to the same high school. Grandfather told me to study hard because it’s a good academic school and I shouldn’t put the school to shame. So it was a bit difficult for me. I think if parents stop forcing their children to study so hard and help them do what they want to do, there will be fewer situations like this”.

CARNEY: In a recent survey about 50% of the country’s teenagers said they had suicidal thoughts and cited school pressure as the major cause. 

It’s not good enough to be brilliant, students also need to be beautiful. Seoul is the plastic surgery capital of the world. Among top performing students, the kids are looking for something to set them apart and surgery is the latest thing. The boom in plastic surgery started with notions of western beauty, but now it’s being driven by the doll like features of the Korean k-pop stars. 

On graduation, many parents give their children the gift of plastic surgery. A new nose or rounder eyes can give them the edge in the job market. Nineteen year old Choi Ji Hae has succeeded in getting into the right university to study hospitality. Now she wants to change her appearance to secure the best job after graduation. 

CHOI JI HAE: “I definitely think that it will help me get a job. Nowadays, how you look is very important in Korea, and if you look friendlier you’ll receive more attention”.

CARNEY: Choi’s mother is paying for her to have her eyes widened. 

CHOI JI HAE: “I’ve had a complex about my eyes since I was young. My eyes are slanted a little upwards and I want to change the first impression I give”. 

CARNEY: Doctor Lee Yong Jun does about 8 procedures a day, the most popular are nose jobs and eyelid surgery to make the eyes rounder. 

DR LEE YOUNG JOON: “Appearance in particular is very important because if you look good you’ll be treated well in every way and be in a better position when you’re looking for a job or trying to get married. 
When someone has surgery, they change the way they look. If the result is as good as they hoped it would be, they’re very satisfied. And it gives them more confidence”.

CARNEY: There’s a push back now in South Korea against all the pressure being brought to bear on kids. Five hours drive south of Seoul a bold educational experiment is happening – an alternative school. 

Taebong school puts the students at the centre of learning, creative thinking and communication are the guiding principles here. 

South Korea is starting to set up dozens of schools like this. Classes are discussion based and students are encouraged to come up with their own answers and solutions to problems. 

TEACHER: [to class] “Tell me the answer please?”

STUDENT: “Differences and discrimination could be the things that split friends up”.

CARNEY: It’s Sehan Jin’s second year at Taebong.

JIN SEHAN: “At this school, everyone feels like family and I really love that teachers treat us as human beings. It’s easy for teachers to look at students just as subjects to supervise when there are too many of them, but here they think of me as an individual and look out for me”.

CARNEY: They don’t study 15 hours a day here, but 80% of students still get into university, not the top ones, but importantly do a course they want to do. Sehan says his dream of becoming an architect can be realised here.

JIN SEHAN: “It’s because our school respects each and everyone’s individuality and recognises the different dreams we have and that we don’t all look in the same place. They acknowledge that we have different ideas and different experiences. So I think they respect our individuality”.

CARNEY: But grinding hard work remains the mantra in most schools. Cha Gil Yong, superstar online maths teacher epitomises South Korea’s education obsession. 

CHA KIL YOUNG: [at stadium holding up signs to screaming crowd] “Everyone can do it. Please give it all! We love you”.

CHA KIL YOUNG: “Korea was an extremely poor country after the Korean War, but we were able to achieve such rapid growth in such a short period of time thanks to education”.

CARNEY: Like many, he works 18 hour days with little time for his young family. Here, business comes first. 

CHA KIL YOUNG: “We have no resources, only people, so for Korea education is the only way”. 

SONG LYRICS: “Even when sleep as sweet as candy tempts you, fight it, endure it, you can’t fall, give it all! Fantastic marks and the uni you’ve dreamed of, miracle is getting closer. Give it all!”