South Korea (It's not quite about the exam takers, however. It's about a company that offers coaching -- online):
... In this country, where people’s status and income at 60 are largely determined by which college they entered at 18, South Korean parents’ all-consuming task is to ensure that their children enter an elite university. And that requires a high score on the college entrance exam.
By tapping into those anxieties, which deepen during recessions, Megastudy has become South Korea’s fastest-growing technology company, with sales expected to grow 22.5 percent this year, to 245 billion won ($195 million), even as the country’s economy is projected to contract.
About 2.8 million students, including approximately half of all college-bound high school seniors, are members of Megastudy, which allows them access to some of the country’s most celebrated exam tutors. For a fraction of what they would pay at traditional private “cram schools,” students can watch video-on-demand tutorials on home computers or download them into hand-held devices for viewing in the subway or parks. They can skip or fast-forward through some parts of a lecture and bookmark or repeat the rest.
Thanks for posting the nice series on entrance exams. The ones in Japan are also well known and large number of students spend an extra year at coaching centres.
ReplyDeleteSee:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_education_in_Japan