[theqoo] KOREAN STUDENTS, SEE SHARP DROP IN LITERACY SCORES OVER 3 YEARS, TRAILING CHINA IN SCIENCE, READING AND MATH

September 9, 2026

“Like other OECD nations, South Korea has seen students become more accustomed to accepting biased information rather than acquiring knowledge through critical reading, a shift driven by the proliferation of digital content and increasing over-reliance on smartphones,” the analysis noted, adding that “the feared decline in literacy has now been confirmed by international indicators.”

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1. So it’s not just a gut feeling I have in my head. Our kids are *actually* getting dumber…

2. It’s a total train wreck when you make high schoolers write logical essays for performance assessments ㅋㅋㅋㅋ But the parents are even worse… f*ck ㅋㅋㅋㅋ

3. You see dumb parents raising their kids foolishly, obsessing over English when the child can’t even properly handle Korean. They whine, “Oh, you’re hurting my child’s confidence,” whenever the kid is told they can’t do something. Because of this inept parenting, the child turns out dim-witted and uncontrollable. Then, thinking good school grades are all that matter, they turn the kid into a mere machine for solving test questions, leaving them with no social skills or humanity. It’s the parents who messed up the upbringing, yet they blame society. The list of problems just goes on and on

4. Smartphones are the real problems ㅋㅋㅋ

5. It’s only going to get worse from here. Everyone, kids and adults alike, is obsessed with things like Shorts and SNS; people used to at least read comics, but it seems like even that doesn’t happen much anymore

6. Schools must start banning smartphones and tablets in their classes. All students do nowadays is pretend to be studying

7. I believe policies should change to ban social media and require frequent exams. Eliminating tests to reduce stress over grades and exams has actually messed kids up in a bad way

8. We need to start reading more books and develop more critical thinking

9. We’re the worst performing of all the Asian countries

10. We’re the worst among Korea, China and Japan… How did this happen

11. Can people read more books…

12. This is the outcome society wanted, after allㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ Did they implement the policy without realizing that? Do they think kids would just study on their own if left alone?

13. Kids at school aren’t even attending class or studying, for that matter. The vast majority don’t study, yet the media only highlights the tiny fraction of cases where students are pushed incredibly hard. The real, more serious issue is that most kids simply aren’t studying, but the media ignores it; basic academic proficiency has plummeted. How can you expect creativity when they aren’t learning anything? We need to stop harping on about “creativity.” We’re a country that relies on talent to survive, but if we keep going down this path, we’re going to get completely overtaken by China

14. We honestly need to start banning SNS

15. For real, I feel like everyone is just getting dumber