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Republic of South Korea Research Paper

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PAPER ON COUNTRY
THE REPUBLIC OF SOUTH KOREA
In this research I will be describing data’s about Republic of South Korea, and discussing the conditions of early childhood education, the economy effects it has on children and families along with the issues of child and human rights violations, programs to support children with working families and other concepts that are there in South Korea.
The Republic of South Koreais a small country on the far eastern edge of Asia. It is located in the southern part of the Korean peninsula. South Korea is surrounded by the Northwest Pacific Ocean around the western coast of Seoul, which is the capital of the country. The country faces japan across the East Sea and china across the yellow sea. To the north across the DMZ is NorthKorea.The country shares a border with North Korea.

The Korean flag is called Taegeukgi.In the middle, there is a circle that has a red top and blue bottom. Then the top left is three straight lines, bottom left is two straight lines and two half lines between them, top right, is one straight line and four halves on both sides of the whole line, bottom right, six half lines with a white background. Its design symbolizes the principles of the yin and yang in Asian philosophy. The white background stands for the peace and purity of the Korean people. Ying and Yang is the red and blue circle in the center of the flag divided into two equal parts. Red represents positive and blue represents negative. Ying and yang is like the symbol of balance of the universe. The top four symbols stand for the state of harmony of yin and yang. The top left representing heaven/ metal, Bottom left is fire, top right is water, and bottom right is earth.
South Korea is a republic governed country with powers nominally shared among the executive, the legislature, and the judiciary, but traditionally dominated by the president Lee- Myung-BakThe president is the leader of the country and is elected every 5 years.The country has nine provinces and seven administratively separate cities. The capital of Seoul, along with Busan, Daegu, Daejeon, Gwangju, Incheon and Ulsan. Political parties include New Frontier Party (NFP), Democratic United Party (DUP), Liberty Forward Party (LFP), Unified Progressive Party (UPP), Renewal Korea Party (RKP) and K Party (KP). Voting age is a 19.
The South Korean economy was shattered by war 1950-1953. South Korea and North Korea remained separated. Tensions around reunification remain with north communist and south democratic. Over the past several decades, the Republic of Korea has achieved a remarkably high level of economic growth from the current economic crisis in 2008. With unemployment rate of 3.4%, Government is pushing for more jobs creations, government have stepped up to support lower income class families with affordable houses, vitalize loans, promote adoption to help needy children who needs support and secure. South Korea have demonstrated incredible growth by becoming a high tech industrialized economic which has allowed the country to rise from the rubble of the Korean War into the ranks of the Organization for Cooperation and Development (OECD). Today, South Korea is the United States' seventh largest trading partner and is the 15thlargest economy in the world.On the basis of Korea's recovery from the global financial crisis, the government has been continuously making efforts to strengthen the groundwork for long term growth and boost the real economy.
Poverty rate is important because it has an impact on everyone regardless of their income and many individuals can be affected by it as well. South Korea’s child poverty rate was10.3% somewhat below the average of 12.7%. Despite the advances it has made, South Korea still faces certain problems, notably in the area of children’s rights such as child abuse, right to education, disabled children, and freedom of speech. The country’s number one interest is for children’s to have a human right to develop their full potential. Number two is changing social and economic conditions in the world required increase attention to children and family needs. These two reasons are extremely important because children can be victim of child abuse in their family, school or in public environment. These types of bad actions can have severe consequences in their mental and physical health leaving children with irreversible troubles in their behaviors.
Education is an essential right, which permits each person to receive instruction and to blossom socially. The right to an education is vital for the economic, social and cultural development of all societies. South Korea’s educational system is very competitive. Considerable pressure is put on children and some of them are unable to cope. Certain ones are even driven to commit suicide because they find the competition and the abuse that they suffer at the hands of their teachers to be unbearable. Education is a human right which ought to be accessible to everyone, without any discrimination or abuse. All children should be able to go to school, and benefit from the same opportunities to build a future and be able to enjoy their right to an education.
Children who suffer from mental or other physical disabilities are often marginalized by the system of social protection. They do not attend school and therefore have no place or human right in society.There is an increasing risk of disabled children becoming unfortunate victims of violence due to their inability to defend themselves. Also due to lack of knowledge, most of the disabled children do not receive education, not even primary education for that matter. Freedom is a sacred and inalienable right that all human beings possess. It is the power to act according to its will, while respecting the law and the rights of others. In certain educational establishments, the opinions of children are given no weight.Every child has the right to express freely their opinion on all the questions which concern his/her life.A child should not be the victim of the pressure of an adult, who would try to force him/her in order to influence them in their opinion. The Committee of Children’ Rights has recommended that the South Korean government do more to respect the participation and ideas of children across the board, within the home, at school and in society.
Since 2012 South Korea’s birth rate has been 8.42 births/1,000 populations, along with the fertility rate which is 1.23 children born by woman since 2011. Infant mortality rate is 4.08 deaths/ 1, 000 live births: Males 4.29 deaths/ 1,000 lives births, Females 3.86 deaths/ 1,000 live births since 2011. The implications from these statistics pretty much shows that the level of health in the country is very poor. Population change is also decreasing in size and growing older. Besides the child adoption and maternity leave, they country does not really offer a lot of support to family. Family members are entitled to pay all cost for everything. They parental leave policy that they have is 15 to 90 days and it is a paid maternity care, covered by health insurance, grants, and voucher eligibility. Dap Program, adoption program, childhood promotion act, child care act 2001, early childhood education act 2011, private schools with learning center and child care centers are provided for infants and toddlers. They usually have half day for the preschools but it is being moved to full days due to many working mothers. Preschool teachers are well educated and trained, and must have a 4 year degree or 2 years diploma in order to be a qualified teacher. Child ratios in the country are: infants 1:2, 2 years old 1:5, 3 years old 1:7, 4-6 years old 1:20. Youth program centers, service learning program, after school program are all provided for the schoolage children along with a 3 day camp for adoptive children. Teachers spend 10 to 15 hours a day each week with 35- to 40 students in formal school classroom with only 1 teacher with extra help of some students. In South Korea teachers are known as the nation builders. Building a great education system for children is their grand plan. Teachers in South Korea are well paid; lower secondary teachers can expect midcareer salary of $52, 699 much higher than the OEC average of $4,701. Teachers have great respect and status, they was even mentioned in several speeches made by president Obama. Programs such as institute of child care and education was developed by Korea to offer and verified quality diverse methods in kindergarten and childcare centers, making it easier for children to be all diverse in school and out of school. The country is still working on building better programs for its citizen. South Korea’s main current needs are to create more prudent strategy to having better security, and fighting for human/children rights. South Korea is surrounded by big powers and has limits in terms of national power, which could end up limiting Korea’s choices. Also human/children right is important because many children and families have been affected by it. I think it’s time for public voices to be taking into consideration. Human right in South Korea is evolving significantly and many lives are being affected by it, but regardless of that issue the economy have demonstrated and achieved an incredible growth rate and are growing slowly by slowly after all the ridiculous amount of crisis that they suffered from. Despite the fact that the country is still behind on providing ECE support to children’s and families. Child education maintains to be improving day by day. Government programs are being built to best assist family members, also ECE promotion act are offering and allowing more services for local families.

Sources:
1.) OECD Country Background Report ( Website)
2.) Considering The Care of Children 2nd Edition by: Judy B. & Rober L. Lindamood ( Textbook)
3.) CIA Factbook ( Website)
4.) U.S Department of State ( Website)
5.) Encyclopedia ( Webiste)
6.) Korea.net (Webiste)
7.) South Korea By: Shepheard, Patricia ( Textbook)

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