We must use this problem as an opportunity to transform our very notion of education. The competition ratio to enter CheongShim International Academy, one of the two existing international middle schools, was 16.9:1 last year. There are 93,700 Korean students attending elementary, middle and senior high schools in the United States; Korean students make up the largest group of foreign students there. International schools in Southeast Asia are teeming with Korean students already. At an apartment complex slated for completion in the southern port city of Busan next year, a school will open that teaches classes based on the American education system. The school signed a contract with a private school in the U.S. to do that. This shows just how much demand there is in Korea for schools that teach classes in English.

If that is the case, then perhaps we should shift our way of thinking and try to open more schools that meet this demand. Competition to enter such schools will ease if we open not two or three but 20 or 30 schools that teach classes in English. The reason why parents in Korea spend tens of millions of won each year to send their children to the far corners of the earth to learn in English is because they cannot send their children to the schools they want to here. Each year, 30,000 Korean students leave Korea to study abroad. They are all children of well-to-do families. Because we were unable to open schools in Korea that teach in English, due to the restraints imposed by an egalitarian educational policy, children of wealthy families receive their education overseas, while children from poor families don’t get that chance and end up having to study in Korea. The result is a deeper rift in education between the rich and poor.

The same goes for independent private high schools and foreign language high schools. Out of the 2,000 high schools in Korea, only six are allowed to plan their own educational curriculum, and they are independent private high schools. And private crammers catering to students seeking to go to independent private high schools are seeing business boom. Just as government regulations to curb real estate prices ended up raising housing prices by lowering supply, educational regulations aimed at cracking down on private crammers actually ended up increasing demand for such classes.

No matter how many different regulations were imposed, the government has failed to curb overheated competition to enter universities, including the need to send children to expensive private crammers. The answer lies in nurturing 30 or 40 high-quality universities that boast their own unique characteristics so that parents would want to send their children to them. If that happens, then the culture of staking one’s life on entering a handful of elite universities will ease.

We must let campuses of elite foreign universities be built inside the free economic zones in Korea. In an evaluation of 200 universities around the world by the Times of London last year, Seoul National University ranked 51st, while KAIST ranked 132nd. Other so-called “prestigious” universities in Korea did not even make the list. If students can receive an education from the world’s top 10 or 20 universities around the world in Korea, then parents will no longer have to strive to send their child to less prestigious Korean schools. If parents in Korea compare the quality of education at those schools with Korean universities, then Korean universities will have no choice but to change. Such changes would improve the quality of education at Korean universities according to global standards, and this would allow more Korean students to enter good universities. That in turn would ease competition to enter the handful of existing prestigious universities.

To make this shift in mentality possible, the government should put the top priority on ensuring that students who perform poorly in terms of grades will be taken care of first. This would entail drastic rises in educational funding to schools in poor neighborhoods. The government should also drastically raise the chances for underprivileged children to enter universities by offering a range of benefits and programs. We must also implement a system of evaluating principals and teachers based on their track record of improving the grades of poorly performing students. Negative sentiment toward elite schools will disappear only if parents of poorly performing students are assured that their own children will have a chance to receive quality education. The U.S. is virtually the home of independent and elite education. But the catchphrase of U.S. education is “No Child Left Behind.” Korea’s educational system will change if the government is able to assure parents that children who perform poorly will be taken care of so that they receive a meaningful education and are able to play a part in society.

Education is not a zero sum game where your own child ends up losing if another child gets good grades. We need to provide ample opportunities to top-notch students to realize their fullest potential, while ensuring that poorly performing students are not left behind. A win-win strategy in education is the only way to ensure that Korea and all Koreans succeed in the 21st century.