Politics and Theories in the History of Curricular Reform in South Korea

Before Japan annexed the Korean peninsula as its colony in 1910, Korea had developed its own educational system and curricula through almost 5,000 years of written history. The Koreans traditionally prized the humanities and regarded technical subjects as vulgar. The nobility learned Confucian ethics and philosophy from the primary community schools, and the practical subjects were for the common people. All the primary schools and some secondary schools were established and managed privately, and the rest of the secondary schools were run by the central or provincial governments. The central government was responsible for higher education. Generally speaking, the curricula of the schools were for the state examination; that was the only means to becoming a government official.