<p>Is this Asian education phenomenon entirely bad? Don’t get me wrong I certainly think there are negative effects on a personal level for the students and their parents. If over-populated industrializing (eg. China) or newly industrialized (eg. South Korea- it may be the most technologically advanced country on earth now, but just half a century ago it was one of the most impoverished places on earth) are choosing to have fewer children and and therefore to spend more money educating that one child then say have many children who are not well educated (ie. see the population explosion in Africa, and also the low literacy rates in many African nations). Isn’t it a good thing that some of these countries are taking the “quality over quantity” approach to raising a family?</p>
<p>Again not to discount the hardship some of these students and their families face, and I think we can all agree that the hyper-competition in some of these countries could use a little tempering.</p>