Here is a sensible suggestion: Upgrade the public education for English, which is partly what Lee Myung-bak continues to push for (here) through hiring 23,000 new teachers to conduct English as a second language classes in English from 2010 to 2013 and commence a teacher-training program for 3,000 teachers per year (here).
Statistics on the English frenzy are as follows. According to a 2006 SERI Report (here) 102,340 South Koreans sat for TOEFL, representing 18.5% of the global total of 554,942 test takers between 2004 and 2005. Citing MBC figures, each South Korean students spends an average of 15,548 hours learning English from middle school through college (try dividing this by 9 years * 365 days * 24 hours). Annually this costs 14.3 trillion won, which exludes the 700 billion won spent on tests of English proficiency. Combined (approx. US$15 bill.) that makes up 1.9 % of South Korea’s GDP. (Recipients include the more than 14,000 English teachers, here, but mainly the English institutes – such as Pagoda with a montly average of 50,000 students, here).
On another aside, North Koreans on average scored 69 (out of 120 points) compared to 72 for South Koreans on the TOEFL test in the period September 2005 and December 2006 (here). Even though North Korean test takers mostly come from the elite, it is yet another indicator of the state of English in the South. But to think what they could do with even a fraction of those 15 trillion won…
