Cram schools (also known as crammers) are specialized schools that train their students to meet particular goals, most commonly to pass the entrance examinations of high schools or universities. The English name is derived from the slang term "cramming," meaning to study hard or to study a large amount of material in a short period of time. Cram schools are more common in non-English speaking countries, and they go by various indigenous names, such as: Students in Rome, Italy. ... Students attending a lecture at the Helsinki University of Technology The word student is etymologically derived through Middle English from the Latin second-type conjugation verb stŭdērĕ, meaning to direct ones zeal at; hence a student is one who directs zeal at a subject. ... An entrance examination is an examination that educational institutions use to determine whether prospective students are good enough to enter their institution. ... High school - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... Representation of a university class, 1350s. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Slang is the use of highly informal words and expressions that are not considered standard in the speakers dialect or language. ... Look up Study on Wiktionary, the free dictionary To study means to acquire knowledge, often by memorization or reading. ...

• Juku (Japanese)
• Hagwon (Korean)
• Buxiban (Mandarin)
• Grind School (Slang, Ireland)
• Frontisterion (Greek)
• Cursinho pré-vestibular (Portuguese, Brazil)
• Dersane (Turkish, Turkey)

Cram schools are specialized schools that train their students to meet particular goals, most commonly to pass the entrance examinations of high schools or universities. ... Cram schools are specialized schools that train their students to meet particular goals, most commonly to pass the entrance examinations of high schools or universities. ... Mandarin, or Beifanghua (Chinese: 北方話; Pinyin: Běifānghuà; literally Northern Dialect(s)), or Guanhua (Traditional Chinese: 官話; Simplified Chinese: 官话; Pinyin: Guānhuà; literally official speech) is a category of related Chinese dialects spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. ... Slang is the use of highly informal words and expressions that are not considered standard in the speakers dialect or language. ...

Education

Cram schools are usually privately owned. They are prevalent in East Asia, where education plays a greater part in adolescent life. In fact, there are so many cram schools in Japan, mainland China, Taiwan, Korea, Vietnam, and Hong Kong, that they have become a de facto parallel educational system, and high school students may need to attend cram schools after regular school to master certain important courses, like English, mathematics or natural sciences. The definition of continental subregions in use by the United Nations. ... The highlighted area in the map is what is commonly known as mainland China. Mainland China (Simplified Chinese: 中国大陆; Traditional Chinese: 中國大陸; pinyin: Zhōnggúo Dàlù; literally The Chinese Massive Landmass or Continental China) is an informal (disputed — see talk page) geographical term which is usually synonymous with the area... Korea (Korean: (조선 or 한국, see below) is a geographical area, civilization, and former state situated on the Korean Peninsula in East Asia, bordering China to the northwest and Russia to the northeast, with Japan situated to the southeast across the Korea Strait. ... The academic discipline of English studies explores the production and analysis of texts produced in English (or in areas of the world in which English is a common mode of communication). ... Euclid, a famous Greek mathematician known as the father of geometry, is shown here in detail from The School of Athens by Raphael. ... The term natural science as the way in which different fields of study are defined is determined as much by historical convention as by the present day meaning of the words. ...

Cram schools usually specialize in a particular subject or subjects. Cram schools that prepare students for high school and university entrance examinations are also frequently specialized to particular schools, and the staff may have access to previous years' examinations. Special cram schools that prepare students who have failed their entrance examinations (known as ronin in colloquial Japanese) to take them the following year are also common. Such students may spend up to eighteen hours a day studying to retake their tests. Students who attend regular after-school cram schools may study four hours or more. Graves of 47 Ronin at Sengakuji A ronin (Japanese: 浪人 rōnin: literally, wave man - one who is tossed about, like a wave in the sea) was a masterless samurai during the feudal period of Japan that lasted from 1185 to 1868. ...

As the name suggests, the aim of a cram school is to impart as much information to its students as possible in the shortest period of time. The goal is to enable the students to "parrot," that is, to unthinkingly repeat, information that is deemed necessary for particular examinations. Cram schools are sometimes criticized, as indeed are the education systems in the countries in which they are prevalent, for the lack of training their students receive in critical thinking and analysis.

Cram schools in Taiwan

Taiwan's cram schools are called buxiban and are not necessarily cram schools in the traditional sense of cram. Almost any kind of extra curricular academic lesson could be termed buxiban regardless of whether it is really short-term or not.

See also: teaching English in Taiwan Teaching English in Taiwan is a big business among the wealthy. ...

Cram schools in India

Like in other Asian countries education plays a very great role in the lives of the young. And given the intense competition that young Indians experience because of the country's huge population, the need for a degree takes on a whole new perspective. Numerous cram schools—referred to as tutorials in India—have sprung up all over the nation. Like elsewhere here too these tutorials have become a parallel education system with the aim of getting their "clients" through various competitive exams. These exams are necessary to get into not only fields like engineering, medicine and law but also into India's civil services.

Some of the more prominent tutorials are:

• Brilliant Tutorials
• egurucool.com
• Gupta Tutorials
• Inamdar Classes

Cram schools in Japan

Main article: Juku Cram schools are specialized schools that train their students to meet particular goals, most commonly to pass the entrance examinations of high schools or universities. ...

Cram schools in Korea

It is common for Korean school-children to attend one or more institutes after their elementary school-day is finished. Some types of institutes include math, science, art, and English. English-language institutes are particularly popular.

Many native English-speakers are hired to teach at English-language institutes in Korea, referred to as English hagwons. The requirements for such a teaching position include a 4-year university degree, citizenship in an English-speaking country, and the ability to sign a contract for one year. In return, the institute often provides the instructor with round-trip airfare from his or her country of origin and a rent-free apartment for the duration of the instructor's contract.

Because of the importance of the university entrance examination in determining one's career prospects, students are under intense pressure to study long hours. The high school years, especially, are a time when students have little chance to do much except study. The Korean saying "Sleep five hours and fail, sleep four hours and pass" is taken seriously; for three years students typically begin school at 6 a.m. and finish at midnight; some students finish at 10 p.m. and go to hagwons until midnight or 1 a.m.. Students can forgo the 6 p.m. to midnight classes and self-study sessions but only with permission from both their parents and their homeroom teacher, and few bother to ask. The schedule lasts seven days a week and is rigorous even during periods of nominal vacation. It is not uncommon during exam periods to see students sleeping during class from exhaustion. Students are encouraged to conceive of themselves as being in fierce competition with their friends and peers.

Korean high school students suffer from high rates of depression and suicide; suicide rates spike around times of major exams. In 2005 students gathered in Seoul for a candlelight vigil in memory of friends who had committed suicide and to protest for shorter school hours and an end to the haircut policy. A significant number of them wore masks and asked reporters not to take photographs out of fear of being punished by their teachers; many schools warned their students not to attend.

Cram schools in China

Cram schools are popular in mainland China due to the importance of standardized exams, such as:

• High school entrance exam (after junior high, at 9th year of school).
• The National College Entrance Examination, mandatory for college admission.
• English language exams. Passing the College English Test (CET) band 4 and 6 is sometimes a prerequisite for bachelor's degree, and the certificates are important in job search. The TOEFL and GRE tests from ETS are required for studying abroad in English-speaking countries. The most successful cram school in English is New Oriental, which quite resembles Kaplan in the US (see below).
• Entrance exams to domestic graduate program. Over recent years the competition has been intensified, partially because many new college graduates fail to find satisfactory jobs and seek post-graduate education instead.

The National College Entrance Examination is an academic examination held annually in the Peoples Republic of China aimed to select high-school graduates for college admissions. ... The Test Of English as a Foreign Language (or TOEFL, pronounced toe-full, or sometimes just toffle) evaluates the potential success of an individual to use and understand Standard American English at a college level. ... The Graduate Record Examination or the GRE, is a standardized test taken in order to get into graduate school in the United States. ... ETS is an abbreviation of: Educational Testing Service, which administers tests such as SAT and GRE Emission Trading Scheme (see also European Union Greenhouse Gas Emission Trading Scheme) Endoscopic thoracic sympathectomy, a medical procedure Environmental Tobacco Smoke, see tobacco smoking Escondido Tutorial Service, an online tutorial service for homeschooling families...

Cram schools in Turkey

The "dersane" system is the Turkish counterpart of cram schools. Students, typically in week-ends (in many instances, also after the school hours, especially in the last year), are drilled on various aspects of OSS, the unified "Student Selection Exam". Oss is a municipality and a city in the southern Netherlands, in the province of North Brabant. ...

A category of high school called "Fen Lisesi" (Sciences High School) is also widely considered as cram schools in Turkey. In the beginning, these schools had been found to promote scientific education particularily in the primary sciences like Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Mathematics. However the unified university entrance test exam system (OSS) structure transformed these school into intense test tutoring centers where students are trained for 4 years on taking the OSS test. Widely criticized in Turkey for inability to provide a well-rounded universal education nor the primary sciences to students, the "Fen Lisesi" system have produced consistently the best OSS test scorers years after years, especially in Sciences and Mathematics weighted point groups. Oss is a municipality and a city in the southern Netherlands, in the province of North Brabant. ...

Cram schools in the United States

The phrase "cram school" is considered pejorative in the United States, so similar businesses are called "tutoring services" or "test preparation centers." Some well-known businesses of this type are Kumon, Barron's, Kaplan, Peterson's, Sabioacademy.com and the Sylvan Learning Center franchises of Educate, Incorporated. In Europe, a similar brand is Schülerhilfe. Look up pejorative in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Barrons Educational Series, Inc. ... Kaplan, Inc. ... Petersons is an American test preparation and educational publishing company that publishes materials designed to prepare students to pass high school and college entrance exams. ... This article is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedias deletion policy. ... The Sylvan Learning Center is one branch of the corporation Educate, Inc. ... Franchising (from the French for free) is a method of doing business wherein a franchisor licenses trademarks and tried and proven methods of doing business to a franchisee in exchange for a recurring payment, and usually a percentage piece of gross sales or gross profits as well as the annual...

See also

• Education
• School

Students in Rome, Italy. ...

External link

• Article about Asian education, with cram school mentioned on it