Let's start by saying that I am an Indian. I live in a country, where the education system is basic. Our daily routines as a student are basic. Getting up, eating, going to school or college, eating, homework, eating again, sleeping. This is the general pattern. Maybe some extra-curriculum, too. So while I was busy hating on my syllabus, I came across something that made me grateful towards where I am.
Studying is so important. You know what you do when you have to sit with your books to study? You curse the person who thought it to be necessary to study, more so, the person who made rules about education- you know, who would pass an exam and who would not.
As you continue figuring out why you need to learn Pythagoras theorem when no one in future would care about it, someone at the other end of the world has bizarre study habits. Daily. Every. Single. Day.
And the mind-boggling thing is, that when I say “someone” has bizarre study habits, I mean an entire country, where everyone has a bizarre way of getting educated. Read ahead to get your mind blown.
1. South Korea- Let me take you through their everyday routine: If you were a South Korean student, your early morning classes would start as early as 8 in the morning. The school ends at 4 in the afternoon, but no, you aren't going home. You go to the library to self-study. This process ends at 7 pm, which is dinner time. 8 to 10 at night is again to self-study. Maybe, after that, you might go to a cram school. The name suggests what the students do there. This for an entrance exam which is held, not for 3 or 4 hours, but 8 hours.
On the bright side, after that exam, traditionally, students tear all their books. Now that must have felt better.
2. Japan- Things get better for you if you are a Japanese student. Things are more or less balanced. School, self-study, maybe some extra-curriculum. Then you go home and have dinner and sleep. Sounds pretty much basic and normal? Let's get to the abnormal part of it.
Where in many countries, wearing civil dresses to school is the norm, Japanese schools are still strict about wearing uniforms to schools. While a lot of schools in different countries have holidays on Saturdays, some schools in Japan have normal working days on Saturdays. To add more to the misery, you don't get much of school breaks like you would get in most other countries.
Also, there are no janitors assigned in schools to clean. The students themselves are supposed to keep their school clean, which means that they mop, sweep and scrub their classroom floors, and sometimes even clean the toilets. Tell me, if you aren't from Japan, does your school look presentable at the end of the day? Their school does. To say, all of this is a part of their education.
3. Singapore- The general routine here, again, is pretty basic. School, self-study, homework, and assignments, eating, sleeping.
What brings Singapore to this list is the fact that the process of education is stressful here. The syllabus gets tougher day by day, just for the sake of it. It is already tougher than the rest of the world, and it gets tougher. And you know that that one issue is enough to take the peace out of a student.
4. Hong Kong- The troubling issue for students here is that they have to deal with immense pressure to excel in their exams. And this pressure is huge for the reason, that every student is always working hard for an exam or an assignment even though they have a lot of time in hand for it. Though the students have excellent time-management skills, they never run out of work that needs to be completed. Their productive habits lead to excessive pressure to do better.
And I am saying that this is not just the study pattern of a few students, but the trend of generally all the students in that country. I, personally, never saw a lot of students studying that way.
What needs to be thought of, is that these 4 countries not only top the list for “countries with the most difficult education systems” but they also top when it comes to “students of countries that perform the best in the world” in terms of education. A perfect example of hard-work yielding its fruits.
I don't know about you, but for me, the thought that someone somewhere is studying that way is enough to make me at least stop procrastinating about everything that I need to do. Hopefully, this blog does that for you, too. Tell me about all that you feel related to this topic in the comment box below.
Keep Smiling! 😊
Hey everyone. This is the new blog that aims at telling you things that you need to know. This post was to share with you things that I recently came across and found interesting. Hope you like it. There is a comment box below where you can share your feedback and suggestions and all that you would want to say on this topic. Also, you can send me emails at saimasohail.officially@gmail.com.
Author: Saima Sohail
About
the author: A student, who likes to write in her free time.
Expressing her views and talking about her experiences in studies,
and life values, in general, are all that she does when she writes.
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