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. 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 prepare for the entrance examination at colleges and universities.

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 instructors use previous years' examinations or mock exams to ensure their degree of accompolishment. Special cram schools that prepare students who have failed their entrance examinations 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 a day.

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 pass 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

Japan

Cram schools is Japan are called "Gakushū juku" (Japanese: 学習塾) or "Juku" in short. Juku is so popular in Japan that it is difficult to find a town without Juku. Even in small cities and towns, one can easily find several Juku. Juku are generally divided into two types: academic and non-academic.

Academic Juku

This is a primary type of Juku, whose students are ranging from pre-schoolers to high school students and "Ronin" who finished high school, failed the college entrance exam, and preparing for re-taking the exam. Since college entrance exams are held once a year, if a student failed, he or she has to wait until next year to re-take the exam. Those "ronin" students attend Juku full-time and prepare for the exam next year. To enter into the most competitive college, some "ronin" stay as "ronin" for two or three years until he or she passes the exam.

Many prestigious elementary schools give entrance examination to pre-schoolers. Toddlers attend Juku to pass those examination. Similarly, students attend Juku to prepare for entrance examination for junior high schools, high schools, and universities.

Academic Juku are also generally divided into two types: designed for advanced students and remedial education. In a Juku for advance students, they teach far advanced materials to students. For example, typical forth graders learn study material designed for seventh grade level. By doing so, students can excel at regular schools and better prepare for difficult questions given at entrance examinations at competitive schools. At many Juku of this type, they publish their original texts and develop their original curriculum. Students also have pass entrance examination to enter into the most competitive Juku. Another type is a remedial education. Unlike many public education, instructors pay personal attention to each student and instructors performance is measured by the success of students. Instructors at Juku also often serve as a mentor or adviser.

Non-academic Juku

Non-academic Juku offer specific education such as music, art, calligraphy, abacus, and a variety of sports. Pre-schooler and elementary school children tend to attend one of those schools. Unlike public schools, instructors at those Juku are area specialists.

It is not uncommon that a student attend more than one Juku. For example, a student may attend a Juku for swimming, another one for music, and another academic Juku. After students reach sixth or seventh grade, they tend to attend only academic Juku.

Juku attendance rose from the 1970s through the mid-1980s; participation rates increases at every grade level throughout the compulsory education years. This phenomenon is a source of great concern to the ministry, which issued directives to the regular schools that it hoped would reduce the need for afterschool lessons, but these directives have had little practical effect. Some juku even have branches in the United States and other countries to help children living abroad catch up with students in Japan.

While new media have been introduced into juku as instructional and delivery methods, traditional teaching is increasingly shifting to individual tutoring. This shift is partly a response by the supplementary education industry to declining numbers of children and the threat this decline poses to their industry.

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.

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 or Princeton Review or similar test preparation schools 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.

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.

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

Finishing School is a supplementary training school popular in India that attempts to make-up for deficiencies of low-tier colleges by providing specialized vocational training in technical fields such as computer programming and information technology.

The recent boom in the Indian Economy has further enhanced the need for such finishing schools. The popular ones in the IT domain are the Mysore based RiiiT (www.riiit.com) and Bangalore based Purple Leap (www.PurpleLeap.com). These IT finishing schools cover technical skills as well as communication and problem solving skills. The biggest advantage of these finishing schools is that these schools cut down the "deployable time" for a company.

Other finishing schools attempt to make up for deficiencies in the Indian secondary education system with regards to math and science education and bring the student up to the level necessary for attending university and gaining admission. For instance, it is not uncommon for Indian students to spend an entire 1 to 2 years studying in a tutorial cram school after secondary education to gain entrance into a top Medical or Engineering school.

Some school in western countries are often flooded by over-prepared and well networked Indian students, to the point of putting their own students at a disadvantage to their own rule and merit based college entrance and scholarship award systems where cram schools are virtually unknown, particular in engineering and medicine, areas which the Indian cram school focus on.

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.

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) 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, 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.

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, Princeton Review, 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. 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 also taken by undergraduate and graduate students in accountancy and law.

External links

• "School Daze", Time Asia
• Library of Congress entry

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