Cram school

Cram schools (also known as crammers) are specialized schools that train their students to meet particular goals, most commonly to pass the entrance examinations of high schools or universities. The English name is derived from the slang term "cramming," meaning to study hard or to study a large amount of material in a short period of time. Cram schools are more common in non-English speaking countries, especially in Asian countries.

Education

Cram schools are usually privately owned. They are prevalent in East Asia, where rote-memorization education plays a greater part in adolescent life. In fact, there are so many cram schools in Japan, mainland China, Taiwan, South Korea, and Hong Kong, that they have become a de facto parallel educational system, and high school students may need to attend cram schools after regular school to master certain important courses, like English, mathematics or natural sciences.

Cram schools usually specialize in a particular subject or subjects. Cram schools that prepare students for high school and university entrance examinations are also frequently specialized to particular schools, and the staff may have access to previous years' examinations. Special cram schools that prepare students who have failed their entrance examinations (known as ronin in colloquial Japanese) to take them the following year are also common. Such students may spend up to eighteen hours a day studying to retake their tests. Students who attend regular after-school cram schools may study four hours or more.

As the name suggests, the aim of a cram school is to impart as much information to its students as possible in the shortest period of time. The goal is to enable the students to "parrot," that is, to unthinkingly repeat, information that is deemed necessary for particular examinations. Cram schools are sometimes criticized, along with the countries in which they are prevalent, for the lack of training their students receive in critical thinking and analysis.

Alternative names

They go by various names such as:

• Juku (学習塾 or 塾, Juku) (Japanese)
• Hagwon (학원學院) (Korean)
• ''Buxiban (補習班 or 补习班) (Mandarin)
• Tutorial school (補習班 or 補習社) (Hong Kong)
• Grind School (Slang, Ireland)
• Frontisterion or Frontistirio (Greek: Φροντιστήριο)
• Curso pré-vestibular, or Cursinho (Portuguese, Brazil)
• Dershane (Turkish, Turkey)
• Preuniversitario or Preu, Pre, or Preú (Chilean Spanish, Chile)
• Escuela propedéutica (Mexican Spanish, Mexico)
• Finishing school, (India)
• Coaching School (Australia)
• Coaching Center (Bangladesh)

By country

China

Cram schools are popular in China due to the importance of standardized exams, such as:

• High school entrance exam (after junior high, at 9th year of school).
• The National College Entrance Examination, mandatory for college admission.
• English language exams. Passing the College English Test (CET) band 4 and 6 is sometimes a prerequisite for bachelor's degree, and the certificates are important in job search. The TOEFL and GRE tests from ETS are required for studying abroad in English-speaking countries. The most successful cram school in English is New Oriental, which quite resembles Kaplan in the US (see below).
• Entrance exams to domestic graduate program. Over recent years the competition has been intensified, partially because many new college graduates fail to find satisfactory jobs and seek post-graduate education instead.

Hong Kong

Cram schools in Hong Kong are called tutorial schools. These cram schools put focus on the two major public examinations in Hong Kong, namely HKCEE and HKALE, and teach students on techniques on answering questions in the examinations. They also provide students tips on which topics may appear on the coming examination (called "question tipping"), and provide students some sample questions that are similar to those that appear in the examinations. Some cram school teachers in Hong Kong have become idolized and attract many students to take their lessons. These teachers are called "King of tutors (補習天王)."

India

Like in other Asian countries education plays a very great role in the lives of the young. And given the intense competition that young Indians experience because of the country's huge population, the need for a degree takes on a whole new perspective. Numerous cram schools—referred to as tutorials in India—have sprung up all over the nation. Like elsewhere here too these tutorials have become a parallel education system with the aim of getting their "clients" through various competitive exams. These exams are necessary to get into not only fields like engineering, medicine and law but also into India's civil services.

Some of the more prominent tutorials are:

• Brilliant Tutorials
• FIITJEE (prepares students for IIT entrance exam)
• egurucool.com
• Gupta Tutorials
• Inamdar Classes

Ireland

"Grind schools," as they are known in the Republic of Ireland, prepare students for the Leaving Certificate examination. Competition for university places (the "points race") has intensified with recent years: students wishing to study medicine, law or veterinary science in particular must achieve five or six "A" grades to be accepted. Some grind schools, such as The Institute of Education, teach full-time. Many others offer weekend or night-time classes for students in subjects in which they struggle.

Korea

A hagwon is a for-profit private cram school prevalent in South Korea. For families that can afford it, hagwon education usually starts at or before elementary level. It is common for Korean school children to attend one or more hagwon after their school. "Hagwon" is also sometimes used to describe similar institutions operated by Korean Americans in the United States.

It is not uncommon for students to be enrolled in several hagwon of different subject areas at once (in addition to their normal school attendance). Hagwons may specialize in subjects like math, foreign language, science, art, or English. Hagwons offering integrated instruction in several subject areas are also common. These are known as soksem hagwon at the elementary level, and ipsi hagwon at the secondary-school level. College and adult students attend gosi hagwon, which are typically focused on preparation for specific civil service examinations.

Like in many Korean public schools, discipline is sometimes administered with extra amounts of work assigned, as well as corporal punishment, if students misbehave, fail a test or do not complete their homework.

Native-speaker instructors

Many native English-speakers are hired to teach at English-language institutes in Korea, referred to as 'English hagwon'. The minimum requirements for such teaching positions are citizenship of USA, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand or South Africa, and a full university degree obtained in the country of citizenship. In return for signing a one-year contract, the institute provides an instructor with a monthly salary, round-trip airfare from his or her country of origin, a rent-free apartment or housing stipend for the duration of the instructor's contract, and an additional one month "severance pay" at the completion of the contract.

Many recruiting companies exist to hire native English speakers for Korean hagwon. Some are based in the US and Canada, while others are Korean-owned. While some of these recruiting companies provide decent services, many of them have earned a reputation of being shady and willing to lie and even fabricate diplomas to get teachers to go work in Korea.

English hagwon frequently experience staff problems and conflicts between the Korean staff and the foreign teachers. Many Korean managers are surprised that foreign teachers are unwilling to perform duties not explicitly outlined in their contracts, despite the Korean ethic of working hard and doing as one is told. Similarly, there are foreigners who are unable to adapt to the new work and cultural environment, or are simply inexperienced teachers, which can lead to problems with not only management but also students and their families. Given that foreign instructors are generally economic migrants who would not otherwise have moved to South Korea, the ability of schools to pay salaries and bonuses in a timely manner and adhere to tax, pension and healthcare regulations tends to be directly proportionate to the morale and goodwill of their foreign instructors.

There are also teaching opportunities in neighboring countries such as China, Japan and Taiwan. The average salary and / or ability to save money in these countries, however, tends to be lower than in South Korea. Salaries are typically higher in larger cities, but so too is the cost of living.

Taiwan

Cram schools in Taiwan are called buxiban and are not necessarily cram schools in the traditional sense. Almost any kind of extracurricular academic lesson could be termed buxiban, such as music, art, math, and science, even if students do not attend these classes specifically in order to pass an examination. It's a traditional belief that parents should send their children to all kinds of cram schools in order to compete against other talented children. Therefore, most children in Taiwan have a schedule packed with all sorts of cram school lessons. But when they study English, often with a "Native Speaker Teacher," they are actually studying at a private language school. Furthermore, since this study is ongoing, they are not "cramming" in the traditional sense of the word, and therefore, these language schools should not be called Cram Schools.

Turkey

The "dershane" system is the Turkish counterpart of cram schools. Students, typically in week-ends (in many instances, also after the school hours, especially in the last year), are drilled on various aspects of ÖSS, the unified "Student Selection Exam."

A category of high school called "Fen Lisesi" (Sciences High School) is also widely considered as cram schools in Turkey. In the beginning, these schools had been found to promote scientific education particularly in the primary sciences like Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Mathematics. However the unified university entrance test exam system (OSS) structure transformed these school into intense test tutoring centers where students are trained for 4 years on taking the OSS test. Widely criticized in Turkey for inability to provide a well-rounded universal education or the primary sciences to students, the "Fen Lisesi" system have produced consistently the best OSS test scorers years after years, especially in Sciences and Mathematics weighted point groups.

United Kingdom

England and Wales

Crammers in England and Wales are almost entirely concerned with enabling pupils to re-take their A-level and GCSE exams, to better their grades and in many cases, to get into university. Some offer boarding facilities. All are expensive, compared even to a public school such as Eton which also provides many extra-curricular activities. The English crammer, on the other hand, achieves results through focus on academic work. Few, if any, organise any sports activities, for example. Reflecting the new industrial giants in the world, much of the clientèle of the English crammer today is Russian and Chinese ^{[citation needed]}. Sample crammers include:

• Davies College in London
• Surrey College in Guildford (closed, as of July 2006)
• Cherwell College, Oxford
• Oxford International College
• Oxford Tutorial College

United States

The phrase "cram school" is considered pejorative in the United States, so similar businesses are called "tutoring services" or "test preparation centers." Some well-known businesses of this type are Barron's, Kaplan, Peterson's, and Sylvan Learning. Generally, such supplementary instruction is only used in the United States as a way to assist students who have learning disabilities or are struggling academically in a particular subject. They are also used by some upperclassmen in high schools to prepare for the SAT, ACT, and/or Advanced Placement exams. Unlike their Asian counterparts, however, these schools tend to stray from rote memorization and more towards vocabulary drills and practicing essay composition. College graduates will sometimes attend such classes to prepare for entrance exams necessary for graduate level education (i.e. LSAT, MCAT, GRE).

Review courses for the CPA examination (e.g., Becker Conviser, part of DeVry University) and the bar examination (e.g., BarBri) are universally taken by undergraduate and graduate students in accountancy and law.

External links

• "School Daze", Time Asia

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