type:Article

本稿では,早期留学が激増しピークに達した廬武鉉政権期から世界的金融危機を経て李明博政権期に至る時期を対象に,「早期留学」が韓国社会においてどのようにとらえられてきたのかを,新聞報道を手掛かりに明らかにしようとした。その結果,早期留学ブームが過熱し,年月が経過するなかで,「キロギ・アッパ」が大きな社会問題となったことをはじめ,留学後の韓国の学校への適応困難,就職における優位性の低下など,早期留学の問題点やその効果に対する否定的認識が広がり,母親が同行しない「管理型留学」や韓国内で早期留学に代わる効果を得られる国際学校や外国人学校などが注目されるようになったことが明らかになった。

In South Korea, a phenomenon called “Jogi-yuhak(pre-college study abroad, hereafter PSA)", i.e. elementary school children, and junior/senior high school students studying abroad, has spread and become a social problem. The aim of this paper is to illustrate how PSA has been perceived in the South Korean society from the Roh Moo-hyun administration period when PSA remarkably increased to the Lee Myung-bak administration period through a global financial crisis. For this purpose, I examined the major topics and issues about PSA in 12 Korean comprehensive daily newspapers of this decade. The results are as follows: PSA had already spread to the middle class parents as one of the possible options for their children. For the first few years, with remarkable increase of PSA, a great deal of know-how, success/failure stories and other useful information appeared. Then came the reflux of returning PSA students to Korea for university entrance (after secondary education abroad), and increase of elementary school children, studying in China and Southeast Asia. In this trend, parents' ambivalent feelings toward PSA were reported. Negative views and dissenting opinions on PSA, pointing out the problems continuously appeared in media. With the increase of PSA students, especially among elementary school children, “Gireogi appa(goose dad)", i.e. the fathers who worked in South Korea to support their wives' and childrens' study abroad also increased. The news of their lonely death and suicide severely worried people in general. In 2006 PSA reached its peak with nearly 30,000 students involved. Tendencies to utilize PSA as an entrance examination strategy and spread of target countries (to China and Southeast Asia) were reported. These PSA's negative sides increasingly recognized, “managed type PSA" not requiring mothers' accompany became popular, together with attention to Songdo International School and other similar schools, as an alternative to PSA. The Lee Myung-bak administration, with English education in public schools reinforcement policy, fueled English fever. The global financial crisis and the increasing costs of study abroad with the weak won, however, made the PSA boom stagnate. The news of decrease of the PSA students continued from around 2010, and causing factors were shown as: difficulty in readaptation to Korean schools after studying abroad, the decline of the effectiveness in entrance examination and finding employment. Thus the PSA is still regarded negatively while international schools or foreign schools attract attention as an alternative to PSA.