Interesting article in Dong-A Ilbo -- Elementary, middle and high school in Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education will have increased emphasis on tests in essay format. One portion of the article was particularly interesting:

Education experts agree that "The easiest misunderstanding for the students to make is that they will no longer have to memorize." In fact, there are many cases in which  simply understanding the prompt will not be enough to give a specific answer, because it is difficult to score high without precisely expressing the key words in the answer. Experts note that while the main concept of a lesson must be clearly understood, the words that are used to express such concept must be accurately memorized as well.

교과서 학습목표 파악-논리적 생각정리 습관을 (Dong-A Ilbo)

Long live rote memorization!

Oh, and before anyone thinks Korean educational system produces uncreative robots, Min-Kyu Choi of Korea just won the Brit Insurance Design of the Year award. Last year's winner, apparently, was the Barack Obama HOPE poster.