Author(s)

Yang Qinyi ¹

Affiliation(s)

¹ University of Manchester, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK

Corresponding Author

Yang Qinyi

ABSTRACT

Sahlberg first introduced the concept of a global education reform movement around standards, accountability, and decentralisation, which is now widely recognised as a "new educational orthodoxy" and exists in many education systems, however, scholars, including Sahlberg, began to show concerns about the effectiveness of this education reform mechanisms. Therefore, this paper examines the development of Korean education as a case study, focuses on five broad characteristics of the global education reform movement, and discusses the changes it has brought in dimensions of the political, economic, and cultural through its development trajectory from the equalisation policies to the elite education. The paper argues that the global education reform movement introduced market mechanisms into the Korean education system and created "education products," like elite high schools, and that these education reforms intensified hierarchical divisions and social stratification. As a result, the creation of a fairer education system is seen as a special concern in current Korean education reform, and the elimination of elite high schools to create the fairest possible education environment can be regarded as a form of resistance to the global education reform movement.

KEYWORDS

Global education reform movement, The elite education, Korean elite high schools, Educational equity

CITE THIS PAPER

Yang Qinyi, The abolition of elite high schools as resistance to GERM—The case study of South Korea. Transactions on Comparative Education (2025) Vol. 7: 41-47. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.23977/trance.2025.070106.

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