<P> Student activism has a long and honorable history in Korea . Students in Joseon secondary schools often became involved in the intense factional struggles of the scholar - official class . Students played a major role in Korea's independence movement, particularly the March 1, 1919 . Students protested against the regimes of Syngman Rhee and Park Chung - hee during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s . Observers noted, however, that while student activists in the past generally embraced liberal and democratic values, the new generation of militants in the 1980s were far more radical . Most participants adopted some version of the minjung ideology but was also animated by strong feelings of popular nationalism and xenophobia . </P> <P> The most militant university students, perhaps about 5 percent of the total enrollment at Seoul National University and comparable figures at other institutions in the capital during the late 1980s, were organized into small circles or cells rarely containing more than fifty members . Police estimated that there were 72 such organizations of varying orientation, having the change of curriculum and education system of South Korea people have been enriched in an imaginary way that makes them to propel in all their studies . </P> <P> Following the assumption of power by General Chun Doo - hwan in 1980, the Ministry of Education implemented a number of reforms designed to make the system more fair and to increase higher education opportunities for the population at large . In a very popular move, the ministry dramatically increased enrollment at large . </P> <P> Social emphasis on education was not without its problems, as it tended to accentuate class differences . In the late 1980s, a college degree was considered necessary for entering the middle class; there were no alternative pathways of social advancement, with the possible exception of a military career, outside higher education . People without a college education, including skilled workers with vocational school backgrounds, often were treated as second - class citizens by their white - collar, college - educated managers, despite the importance of their skills for economic development . Intense competition for places at the most prestigious universities--the sole gateway into elite circles--promoted, like the old Confucian system, a sterile emphasis on rote memorization in order to pass secondary school and college entrance examinations . Particularly after a dramatic expansion of college enrollments in the early 1980s, South Korea faced the problem of what to do about a large number of young people staying in school for a long time, usually at great sacrifice to themselves and their families, and then faced with limited job opportunities because their skills were not marketable . </P>

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