Korea

===According to (School Tool 2012), 64 students were born in Korea. Currently, 69 students in the Ithaca City School district speak Korean as a first language and 35 students speak Korean as a second language.===

The Korean language belongs to the Ural-Altic family of languages which also includes Turkish and Mongolian. Although the language contains many words derived from Chinese and printed media still use Chinese ideographs to represent many of those words, the two languages are very different. Korean is closer to the Japanese language linguistically.

In Korean culture, education is very important. The school one graduates from can determine one's success and pressure and competition to attend top schools is intense. In many Korean families, the education of their children outweighs all other considerations, and young people in South Korea are more likely to have achieved an upper secondary education than anywhere else in the world.

Resources
Most Koreans spend their entire high school life preparing for the all important college entrance examination. After classes, most children attend foreign language classes or other private classes to try to get an edge over their classmates. Some parents even get private tutors for their children as early as primary school, even though this practice was illegal for years. || The Korean public education structure is divided into three parts: six years of primary school, followed by three years of middle school and then three years of high school. In 1996 only about five percent of Korea's high schools were coeducational. The proportion of coeducational schools has increased by almost ten percent. However, classes in many coeducational high schools are still divided along gender lines. The curriculum is standardized so now both boys and girls study technology and domestic science || The annual publication of comparisons in education systems produced by theOECD - the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development - reveals the extent of South Korea's progress. ||
 * [[image:korea-education.png link="@http://www.lifeinkorea.com/information/education.cfm"]] ||  || ====Life in Korea: Education====
 * [[image:asia_society_test.jpg link="@http://asiasociety.org/education/learning-world/south-korean-education"]] ||  || ====Asia Society: South Korean Education====
 * [[image:_BBC-Korea.png]] ||  || ====BBC News: South Korea's Educational Success====