Kim Ki-hoon has risen to stardom of a sort that exists in few places outside South Korea. As the country’s highest-earning celebrity English teacher, he estimates he made about $4m last year from his online language lessons – and then there is the income from his educational publishing company, which turned over about $10m.
The star tutor says about 1.5m South Koreans have taken his classes in the past 12 years. He attributes his success to his engaging teaching style and clever marketing: he selects his television appearances carefully, and made a pop song aimed at nervous university candidates with a chorus urging “Trust me!”.
Mr Kim’s earnings are a fraction of the estimated $20bn spent annually on private tuition in South Korea. Yet he, like others in the industry, expresses unease at the scale of the system that paid for his Porsche. “There should be no need for private education,” he says.
The fierce debate in South Korea over the national education system – in particular, the huge industry of private crammers (hagwons) and online study providers – might surprise its foreign admirers. Figures such as US President Barack Obama and Michael Gove, UK education secretary, have hailed South Korean education as a model, pointing to its children’s impressive showing in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development tests of maths, literacy and science.