Exams and the purpose of education

It is well known that in East Asian countries such as Japan and Korea, the pressure to succeed in exams is very heavy. Many students commit suicide after receiving unimpressive results in these exams. Therefore, there has been much talk of reforming the system to place less emphasis on exams, which would be more akin to nations like Finland or Sweden, which emphasize holistic learning, and letting each student learn at his or her own pace.

But can this actually be done just by reforming the educational system? I have my doubts.

Although it is true that the general culture in Asia does push students towards striving for high results in examinations, there is an underlying reason for this, which is that attaining high results do make a large difference to a student's financial future. Take Korea for an example; it is not easy to start one's own business, and manual labor is not paid that well, so the prevailing path to success is to do well in the high school graduation exam to get into a good university, from which one can enter a renowned company e.g. Samsung and climb the corporate ladder.

In fact, the Eastern culture of focusing on examination results probably stems from the government exams in old China, getting a passing grade in them was a necessity to starting a career in the bureaucracy, which was the primary path to wealth and respect, especially for many poor families. In those days, students who passed would even get a flag erected in their village to commemorate their achievement. With the huge material returns promised upon passing exams, it's really not surprising that its importance was very high.

Coming back to the northern European countries, why is it that they take exam results relatively lightly? I think one key reason is that their societies are much more egalitarian than Asian ones, so even a high school dropout can enjoy a decent living working at manual labor or a service job, since their minimum wage is very high. According to what a friend from that area told me, an engineer there would earn less than twice as much as a waiter, so the returns on academic excellence are, comparatively speaking, much less over there. Since that is the case, students there can focus on following their interest, rather than their economic interest.

Put simply, schooling really serves two aims: one is to educate the populace and the second is to differentiate the academically outstanding from the less outstanding. A strong focus on exams serves the second aim more. In order to reduce society's focus on exams, it is not enough to reform the educational system itself. The economic advantage of being academically outstanding must be reduced, which would entail a higher minimum wage and a stronger social welfare net. Focusing only on "exam culture" is treating symptoms without looking at the cause.