Daewon alumni on top in the legal community
Published: 25 Sep. 2009, 00:56
According to statistics compiled by the JoongAng Ilbo based on materials obtained from various legal institutions, graduates of Daewon Foreign Language High School now account for the second-largest portion of all present and former lawyers, prosecutors and judges in Korea, second only to graduates of Kyunggi.
Of the 17,000 legal officials nationwide, those from Kyunggi totaled 441, while Daewon alumni amounted to 322, when prospective lawyers who entered the Judicial Research & Training Institute this spring were taken into account. The institute trains all who pass the annual bar exam for positions as judges, prosecutors and lawyers.
Ten years ago Daewon graduates made up a small portion of the nation’s legal professionals and up to three years ago they were ranked in the seventh spot.
This year, however, Daewon alumni had the highest numbers, with 37 Daewon graduates entering the 40-year-old judicial institute. Two other foreign language high schools - Myungduk and Hanyoung - followed with 20 students each. Next comes a group of 16 who earned GED degrees and a group of 14 from Anyang High School. The next two schools in the top 10 were also foreign language high schools - Ewha Girls’ and Daeil.
High schools that have been prestigious since the early 1900s, such as Kyunggi, Kyeongbuk and Jeonju, which have maintained top spots in terms of the number of lawyers they have produced, saw their reputations tainted after the Korean government implemented a so-called “equalization” policy in 1974. Under the new policy, students entering ordinary high schools were no longer able to select and apply for the schools they wanted to attend. Instead, local education offices randomly assigned students to schools near their homes.
The high school scene changed again in the mid-1990s, when foreign language high schools began sending a sizable portion of their graduates into the nation’s top universities, which are known collectively as “SKY” after their first initials - Seoul National, Korea and Yonsei.
Daewon and Daeil began as foreign language institutes, not as high schools, in 1983. After gaining official recognition as “special-purpose” high schools in the early 1990s, middle school students with good language proficiency increasingly applied to take separate entrance exams administered by each school and the competition for admissions heated up.
Accordingly, the number of foreign language high school graduates passing the national bar exam picked up. Daewon saw 13 of its graduates pass the exam in 1995 and the figure continued to grow to 20 in 1996, 22 in 1997, 46 in 2007 and 50 last year. The school has in its history so far produced 107 lawyers, 57 judges and 27 prosecutors; the remaining students are either at the training institute or doing their mandatory military service.
Naturally, Daewon graduates have become the center of attention in a county where your alma mater counts more than in other countries. A judge from the Seoul Central District Court said on condition of anonymity that he is afraid of what a new Daewon faction will do to education. “When there’s an excessively high portion of graduates from a specific school, others will be alienated,” he said.
His concerns originate from lingering practices in Korean society. High school and university alumni or people from the same hometown are known to use these ties for promotions or other work-related benefits.
By Park Sung-woo, Seo Ji-eun [[email protected]]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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