Korea's early education frenzy puts children's rights at risk, human rights chief warns

Korean children may excel in the classroom, but many are falling behind when it comes to physical and mental well-being, the country’s top human rights official warned Monday, sounding the alarm over the extreme culture of early private education that has come to define childhood for many families. In Korea, children as young as 4 are being funneled into English-language preschools, while many others enter private cram schools years before elementary school graduation to gain an edge in the country’s notoriously cutthroat college admissions race. Calling the spread of so-called “Entrance exams at age 4 and 7” a serious violation of children’s rights, Ahn Chang-ho, chair of the National Human Rights Commission of Korea, warned that childhood is being consumed by an unhealthy obsession with competition. “Children should grow not according to the speed of competition, but through the depth of time in which they are respected,” he said in a statement released ahead of Children’s Day on Tuesday. The warning comes as the country’s educational success masks deeper vulnerabilit

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