10.215
8 (Thu) August 2019
Albondigas & Gambas & Pulpos
3.0
at Las Flores
(see most recently 8.156 Maya Maya en Salsa Verde)
-BGC, Taguig, Manila, Philippines-
with ISH and her family
Korean parents these days are mad about sending their kids to international school.
My cousin IS has recently moved to Manila – just her and her son and her daughter, the husband staying back in Korea. The sole objective is to send the kids to an international school here. The plan is for three years, at which point they’ll be eligible under Korean regulation to attend an international school in Korea, and she’ll take them back. Maybe. She had gone through the trouble of going to the States to have the kids born there, both of them, so they’d have US citizenship – at that time, non-Korean nationals could attend international schools, but the government has tightened the regulations since – because of people like my cousin. Now, students must be non-Korean nationals and have lived at least three years overseas. Who knows what the rules will be in three years.
When I attended an international school in Korea back in the day, I was only a US Permanent Resident – the rules were looser then.
What’s the explanation behind this obsession with international schools?
i think it began with an obsession with English, a core subject that students need to score well on to get into a good college, even locally. then, it came to be about opening opportunities to go to college overseas, and maybe also to be more competitive in the international job market.
I’m beginning to think that it’s also a status symbol thing, from public to private to international. maybe boarding school abroad will be the next level up.