Speak English, child! This is Korea

By Jonathan Thatcher

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's "wild geese fathers" manage a reunion with their children, and often wives, just once a year after seeing them off for study abroad, invariably to learn in English.

They are, contends a new government zealous to reform, symptomatic of a damaged state education system that forces parents to throw money at private tuition and prevents Asia's fourth-largest economy from leaping to the world's top league.

"The government acknowledges that the lack of English is one of the factors that pulls down the competitiveness this country has," said Education Ministry spokesman Park Baeg-beom.

In the initial enthusiasm after the conservative government won office in December, there were even suggestions of teaching Korean history in English.

At least one major South Korean company requires company communication to be in English.

South Koreans, anxious to ensure their offspring are well-schooled, spend around $5 billion (2.5 billion pounds) a year to educate them abroad -- equivalent to nearly 20 percent of the annual total allocated to education by the government.

At more than 100,000, South Koreans outnumber any other foreign student group in the United States.

And the spending at home on private education -- mostly to supplement daytime lessons at state school -- dwarfs that of most other countries.