3 critical elements that enabled South Korea to overcome Coronavirus crisis
Will Corona pass?
Several months have passed since the Coronavirus hit the world. Supposedly originated from Wuhan province of China, Coronavirus has spread across the globe, affecting billions of people and social structure. The impact of Coronavirus is met with a varying degree by countries, with some countries starting to subdue the virus while some countries aren’t.
South Korea is one of the countries that caught the Coronavirus early on. As of April 22nd, Korea has seen a substantial improvement in containing Coronavirus, with newly confirmed cases down to one digit figure. In this article, I will briefly recap how South Korea handled Coronavirus by referring to 3 key critical elements; Extreme distancing, Extraordinary measures, and Extensive support on the sector in need.
Extreme distancing
On Feb 23rd, South Korean President Moon Jae-In declared to escalate the alert level of Coronavirus to the highest level ‘Red’. This measure was done largely in response to the awareness that the Coronavirus is starting to spread at a nationwide level.
With this measure, Korean society reacted quickly by executing extreme distancing. Major institutions like schools and corporations shut down both in the prevention of, and after an identification of a confirmed case in their vicinity. Major events, like festivals, concerts, and travel plans, were canceled. People isolated themselves in their own homes, and what used to be a populated area became lifeless empty space.
One factor that allowed for this extreme level of distancing possible was a highly developed online commerce infrastructure already in place prior to Coronavirus. Thanks to relatively small country size, major e-commerce companies like Coupang, Baemin, were able to deliver daily goods and foods to almost anywhere in the country. Statistic by Wiseapp shows that even in the midst of Coronavirus crisis, people opened their purse for food delivery (up by 44%), grocery shopping (up by 33%), internet shopping (up by 29%), and home-shopping (up by 29%) that enabled complete sustainment of living at home.
Of course, there are sectors that have been badly affected by Coronavirus, and as a result of people staying home. Industries like travel, hotel, music concert, and even small business on the street are going through probably the most difficult time financially. A number of travel package purchases in 2020 February of a leading travel agency ‘Hana Tour’ has marked -86% compared to the same figure in 2019 February. Asiana Airlines, one of the two major airlines in Korea, began an emergency management system where executives are getting laid off, or reduced salaries. Many employees are on furlough. These industries have become victims of extreme distancing and calling for government intervention for financial support in compensation for their sacrificial contribution to the extermination of Coronavirus.
Extraordinary measures
Coronavirus crisis was a time that forced Korea to execute measures that were extraordinary.
Additional national budget appropriated
At a governmental level, Coronavirus forced the government to declare ‘Red’ state for disaster alert level, initiating various subsequent actions to take place. An additional budget of approximately 10 billion dollars was appropriated to support various damages caused by extreme distancing. Some of these additional funds were allocated to provide relief funds for citizens, with the specific amounts varying by governors.
Tracking down of confirmed individuals
In the name of contact tracking to contain the spread of Coronavirus, individuals who were confirmed were put in the position of having to reveal their whereabouts. Some criticized the extent of tracking is on the verge of violation of privacy rights. For example, there was a woman who works at a karaoke, later found to be a coronavirus confirmed. As a norm, this karaoke is considered a place where the illegal sexual activity takes place. After this woman became confirmed, all men who visited this karaoke and had physical contact with this woman had to reveal their whereabouts to prevent subsequent spreading. Some of these males were rightfully criticized for engaging in illegal sexual activity, but some may have wrongfully criticized for just having been there when there may have been no illegal activity at all.
Shut-down of religious institutions
Temples and churches took extraordinary measures of shutting down their weekly gatherings. For the first time in Korean history, catholic churches halted holding a weekly mass to prevent spreading at a gathering. There have been cases where individual cathedrals halting masses, but never at a parish level.
Major churches also participated in shutting down church doors for Sunday worship. While some churches resisted and insisted that Sunday worship should never be stopped at any cost, the majority of churches contributed to slow down the spreading of Coronavirus.
Shut-down of schools, transitioning to remote learning
Korean’s fervor of education is well-known. Characterized as ‘Tiger Mom,’ Korean parents believe that getting the most prestigious universities will guarantee success in their children’s lives, creating a ‘sea-gull family’ where children flock to foreign countries to study abroad while parents remain in Korea to support them financially.
This is why any changes that can affect college admission test schedule is an extremely delicate issue in Korea and has never been made to this day. Due to the Coronavirus and the fear of its dissemination to children, the Ministry of Education has made two unprecedented decisions; 1) Transition to the remote classroom, and 2) postponement of college admission test day.
While this decision by MOE largely affects K-12, universities have more autonomy and already switched to remote classrooms prior to MOE’s decision. For the first time in Korea, most teachers are forced to teach while facing the camera lens instead of the faces of students.
Extensive support on the sector in need
Among many sectors affected, the education sector needed the most urgent and critical support. As a result, governmental and corporate sectors come together to provide any support that schools may need to transition to a remote classroom environment.
Government-led support
Ministry of Education already led the decision to switch to online learning and postpone the college admission test schedule. However, schools have never conducted a full-scale online class, and the proper environment to achieve online class was lacking. In order to make sure that as many students have access to online connectivity as possible, MOE provided funds to procure thousands of tablet devices and distribute them to those students in need.
Additionally, it would be virtually impossible for all teachers to conduct live-streaming classes. That’s why many resorted to already well-made education contents, provided by EBS. EBS is a governmental media agency specifically broadcasting educational content for K-12. MOE issued directives for schools to utilize EBS in addition to self-made course contents. Due to decisive moves by MOE, education materials to distribute were secured. To enable actual distribution, corporate support played a critical role.
2. Corporate-led support
Some ed-tech companies enabled the educational content to properly flow by providing their tools for free. Two main tasks were supported via corporate support; 1) Live streaming, and 2) class communication.
1) Live streaming
To conduct lectures on live streaming, schools looked for commercial tools, as their on-premise server was not optimized to support a dramatic increase in online classes. The most notable tool was Zoom and Youtube. But Zoom’s security issue and overly public and commercialized nature of Youtube made both tools, not the most suitable options. Nevertheless, these tools certainly played important roles in providing immediate live streaming capabilities.
2) Class communication
Being able to communicate with students online is another critical part of the remote classrooms. What seemed like an easy, normal routine in offline classroom, i.e. role call, submission of the paper, etc, became a hurdle to overcome in itself. While there were many messenger platforms, like Kakao, Line, FB messenger, there were not as many communication tools designed for school settings.
CLASSUM is an ed-tech company that specializes in in-class communication and fostering questions and answers. CLASSUM made a decision to provide its premium service for free for all educators. Along with CLASSUM, several ed-tech companies have offered their services for free in their respective expertise. These philanthropic deeds by these companies were awarded by the Minister of Education.
Coronavirus shall pass. What’s next?
Prime minister of South Korea announced that ‘social distancing shall be extended until May 5th.’ If the Coronavirus situation improves by May 5th, the period of social distancing will be officially over afterward, and things will slowly get back to where they were prior to this crisis. South Korea did a rather good job of overcoming the crisis due to 3 key elements, ‘extreme distancing,’ ‘extraordinary measures’, and ‘extensive support on the sector in need.’
This shall pass, but what will come next? Will society drastically shift towards anything remote? Will schools invest more aggressively on online capability in case if there are any other pandemic in the future? These are questions hard to tell at this point. But among many questions that Coronavirus crisis has left us to ponder upon, this following question seems certainly worth considering: “What is the essence of social interaction, and can we achieve it without being in a physical space together?”
CLASSUM is a communication tool for education used by institutions around the world, including Samsung, Hyundai, LG CNS, Shiseido, and KAIST.
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