Hogwans

For those of you who don't know the ins and outs of the Korean school system, I'm devoting this post to inform you. Koreans value education. Bottom line. Parents invest a lot into their children.

There are two types of schools. Public and private. Private schools are referred to as "hogwans" or academies. There are all types of academies: English, piano, violin, math, science, soccer, art... The list goes on. These are just some of the academies my students go to.

I work at a private English academy, called Kid's College. It is a franchise. So an owner buys the rights to call their school "Franchise Name." They can use the corporate curriculum and material (books, tests, etc.) they want and they can also change things as they see fit. (Other hogwans are corporate and have to follow specific guidelines and curriculum, etc.)

I can't find any statistics (also didn't look very hard) on exactly what percentage of Korean students attend an English academy but I'd bet it's fairly large. There are A LOT of English hogwans. Good for the parents, as they can pick and choose schools. It's a parent's market. Sometimes bad for business owners - especially if the school and/or franchise is newer.

I'll post again in the next few days and announce why I devoted this post to give a little background hogwan info...