[KS] Korean education and literacy during the colonial era

[Kay Richards Gmail]

If you have access to Handbook of Korea, written by Chae Kyung Oh and 
published by Pageant Press, Inc of New York, in 1958, you will find a 
chapter on Education on pp147-172.  It documents number of students in 
primary(elemendary) and secondary schools, and colleges.  You will find 
statistics of pre-liberation years (1910-1939) to mid 1950s.  It does not 
give percentages, but judging by the raw figues given of the increase in 
students in1945-47, 5% seems very low.  The number of children (ages 6-11) 
in school given for 1956 is 3,239,968 which represents 91.02 % of total 
school age children.

Although this book is dated, because it was published in 1958 when the facts 
were fairly recent and therefore it has a better chance of being accurate. 
I am sure there are many other sources where you will find more information, 
but reading your question reminded me of an old source I happened to have 
handy.

Kay Richards
=================
Ms. Kyung-Nyun Kim Richards
Lecturer/Coordinator (Ret.)
Korean Program
Dept. of East Asian Languages & Cultures
3413 Dwinelle Hall
U.C. Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720-2230
U.S.A.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Khanh Ho" <hokhanh at grinnell.edu>
To: <koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws>
Sent: Tuesday, March 16, 2010 6:29 PM
Subject: [KS] Korean education and literacy during the colonial era


> Hi,
>
> I am writing a treatment of a Korean American writer--Theresa Hak Kyung
> Cha--who is a canonical figure in Asian American literature.  My article 
> is
> a historical treatment of pedagogy during the colonial era.  I came across
> this statistic by a scholar of Korean educational history that I'd like to
> use, but I wonder if it is true:
>
> "Less than 5% of Koreans graduated elementary school after the colonial 
> era"
> suggesting low levels of literacy.
>
> One scholarly friend tells me that the number is very low, given that 2/3 
> of
> boys and 1/3 of girls were enrolled in elementary schools during the 35 
> year
> colonial period. But given that children are still a small part of the
> population, I wonder if this statistic is true.
>
> If you can correct me or enlighten me, I would appreciate it.  If you can
> suggest English language sources that I could explore, I would be 
> indebted.
>
> Best,
>
> KH.
>
> Khanh Ho
> Assistant Professor
> Grinnell College
> 1213 Sixth Avenue
> Grinnell, IA 50112
> tel: 641 269 3035
> fax: 641 269 4718
> hokhanh at grinnell.edu
>
>
>
>
>