The Smartest Kids In The World: And How They Got That Way

A hagwon is a private, for-profit, after-school tutoring academy in South Korea. These institutions are a defining feature of South Korea’s “shadow” education system, meaning that they are not part of the public/government-operated system but nevertheless have a massive impact on education in the country. Hagwons provide intensive instruction in subjects like math, science, English, and overall test preparation. Beginning as early as kindergarten, students attend hagwons after their regular school day ends, often staying late into the night, which has led to the creation of a hagwon curfew. This dependency on tutoring creates a hyper-competitive academic culture. Teachers at top hagwons can earn enormous salaries, sometimes in the millions, based on student outcomes and popularity, framing education more like a marketplace than a public good.

In The Smartest Kids in the World, Ripley explores the concept of hagwons to showcase both the strengths and flaws of South Korea’s education system. Hagwons symbolize the extreme rigor and relentless drive for academic achievement present in South Korean culture but also produce inequality, burnout, and an overreliance on private tutoring. Through Eric’s experience in South Korea, Ripley critiques how hagwons create a “hamster wheel” effect, where learning is constant but purposeless outside of test scores.