Foreign Correspondent: June 16

Education has powered South Korea’s stunning economic success. But this week on Foreign Correspondent, Matthew Carney reports its stressed out students also rank as the unhappiest in the developed world.

It’s 11pm and across South Korea the cram schools are finally set to close. For millions of bleary-eyed teenagers it’s the welcome end of a 15 hour school day.

Next morning in the first lesson, exhausted students fall asleep at their desks. It’s just another day in a society that prizes academic achievement above all else, where young lives are charted by success or failure in getting the marks to make it into a top university.

At the heart of this system is a $20 billion private industry dominated by cram schools, or hagwons, that constantly test and retest students.

Feeding off the system are entrepreneurs like Cha Gil-yong, a celebrity teacher whose schtick is to don wigs and wacky costumes in his online lectures. He rakes in $8 million a year. At any one time 300,000 students are logged into his website.

The pressure piles up on students like 19 year old Jae-woo. He missed a top uni by two marks last year. Now he’s cramming for another try.

South Korea has one of the world’s highest suicide rates. Half of its teenagers report suicidal thoughts, mostly blaming school pressure.

For a growing number of students, high marks aren’t enough. Brilliance needs beauty to match – that’s where the plastic surgeon comes in.

While many South Korean kids struggle under the weight of expectations, reporter Matthew Carney also finds positive signs that authorities are finally, belatedly, realising that the price of success may be too great.

Tuesday, June 16 at 8pm on ABC.