Korean School Life in the Fifties and Sixties


Education is a big part of Korean life, just consider the fact that 97% of all Koreans graduate from high-school (highest graduation rate in the OECD) or that the average Korean student between the age of 15 and 24 spends about 8 hours studying every day (as opposed to an average 5 hours for other OECD countries). As you'll see from these pictures, studying hard is an old tradition in Korea:


A math lesson in an all girl middleschool in 1958 in Kyeongi province. Almost all middle schools were unisex until recently. Still today relationships between students are banned in most schools.

Middle school girls using abaci to solve math problems

Until electronic calculators became ubiquitous in the 80's and 90's, Korean students used counting frames to solve their math problems. Competitions were even organized on the national level to distinguish the fastest abaci users. By clicking on this link you can watch a video of such a competition organized in 1975 and admire the skills of some of these Korean students. 

When desks were shared, students hid their papers with their bags to prevent cheating.



Stove like these were common in postwar Korea, when they were the only way to heat the classrooms. Students filled up the stove with coal from a bucket every morning. As you can see in the second picture, they also placed their lunch boxes on top of the stove to keep them warm.

Icecream merchant selling the popular Samgang Hadu ice stick.

On the ceremony for their first day of school, Korean mom would always pin a handkerchief on their kid's clothes. I believe the tradition has disappeared since then.

A boy sporting his handkerchief before his first day of school in 1969.



Name cards such as this one were worn by all students.

A reading textbook

Kids playing with wooden horses on a cart (리어카 목마 or 리어카 말타기). Some similar carts can still be seen (albeit rarely) in Korea today.

Kids playing leapfrog