I'm curious about this. As you may know, many people used to say the same about Japan. And on the surface, the Japanese school system seems to be exactly what you write about the Korean school system. But below the surface, we find that schools are pretty terrible. They don't really teach anything, they just have students memorize facts for a test. Then the extra school students go to after the main school just continues this, drilling in the facts to remember for the test and, in addition, teaching test taking tips. And....this is pretty much the entire system. Memorize like mad for a test, then forget everything you memorized and memorize new stuff for the next test. There is almost no actual learning. So what you find is when kids get to university, they don't really know anything. They have an assortment of random facts still memorized, but little actual knowledge with which to really dive into a field. So then university becomes party years, then they join a company and the company assumes they know nothing, training them from the bottom up.
Does the Korean system have a dark side like this?