A ‘hagwon’ in South Korea is a for-profit private exam school preparing students to achieve particular goals usually passing the entrance examinations of high schools or universities. Each hagwon is specialized in each subject. However, Korean, English and maths are the three most important subjects needed for high scores. 

▲ Lee Ji Hwa Korean School / Director Jeonghwa Lee

Nestled in Daegu Metropolitan City, Lee Ji Hwa Korean School has built a strong presence in the subject and recently won the National Assembly Education Committee Chairman’s Prize at the 2024 Korea Education Industrial Awards for showing excellence in reading, GPA (grade point average) and CSAT (College Scholastic Ability Test).

Director Lee taught students at public schools for 14 years. She proved her teaching skills by sending her students to top universities without private education and received prizes from the Ministry of Education & Human Resources Development and from superintendents of education. This was the foundation of running her current business.

The program she brought up equips students to study reading, GPA and CSAT in a golden ratio. Students are then reshuffled level by level and grade by grade in order to bring maximum results. They can deepen their learning by borrowing a book from around 10,000 books chosen by Lee. What is more? Top performers get rewards through a test and this motivates more students to read and research. In addition, new books are added every month to the school library.

All teachers and material managers at Lee Ji Hwa are Korean majored. As each role is divided into each purpose such as consulting, administration and library etc, it increases overall efficiency of operation. The study materials are open and shared weekly basis and appraisals are taken place every month with direct feedback from Lee when necessary. Thanks to this openness and timely feedback, employee satisfaction is very high not to mention academic performance of students. 

All employees at Lee Ji Hwa are given a free disease and accident insurance covering until they reach 100 years old and petty gifts are also given on Christmas, summer vacation and nation holidays. As of January 2024, the school is running a headquarters building and a high school building, and is planning to open middle school building late this year. Last year, it listed name in the Korea Customer Industry Appraisal as an excellent private exam school.