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At Remuera Primary, Ms. Kim said she believed that English fluency would increase her sons’ chances of gaining admission to selective secondary schools in South Korea and ultimately to a leading university in Seoul. Her husband, Park Il-ryang, 43, graduated from a little-known Korean university, and he said that the resulting lack of connections had hampered his own career.

Before coming here, the parents had sent one son, Jun-sung, now 10, to evening cram schools and their other son, Jun-woo, now 8, to an English preschool. Parents in their apartment building talked incessantly about their children’s education.

Even so, the sons were not making sufficient progress in English, the parents said. They hired a private English tutor to supplement the supplementary cram schools. “We didn’t think the cram schools were doing any good, but we were too insecure to stop sending them, because the other parents were sending their children,” Ms. Kim said.

President Lee Myung-bak said he would start to address the problem by hiring 10,000 English teachers. “This is unprecedented,” he said. “Korea is actually the only country in the world undergoing such a phenomenon, which is very unfortunate.”

South Korean students routinely score at the top in international academic tests. But unhappiness over education’s financial and psychological costs is so widespread that it is often cited as a reason for the country’s low birthrate, which, at 1.26 in 2007, was one of the world’s lowest.

South Koreans now make up the largest group of foreign students in the United States (more than 103,000) and the second largest in New Zealand after Chinese students, according to American and New Zealand government statistics. Yet, unlike other foreign students, South Koreans tend to go overseas starting in elementary school — in the belief that they will absorb English more easily at that age.

In New Zealand, there were 6,579 South Koreans in the country’s elementary and secondary schools in 2007, accounting for 38 percent of all foreign students.

“We talked about coming here for two years before we finally did it,” said Kim Soo-in, 39, who landed here 16 months ago with her two sons. “It was never a question of whether to do it, but when. We knew we had to do it at some point.”

Wild geese fathers were initially relatively wealthy and tended to send their families to the United States. But in the last few years, more middle-class families have been heading to less expensive destinations like Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Now, there are also “eagle fathers,” who visit their families several times a year because they have the time and money. Those with neither, who are stuck in South Korea, are known as “penguin fathers.”

The Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development said Wednesday that it will develop this new form of medium that provides the multi-functionality of textbook, workbook, exercise book and dictionary.

The digital textbook is a study program, which operates via digital media, such as a personal computer, and through wire or wireless networks. It can go beyond conventional paper textbooks by using such features as video clips, animation and virtual reality.

``In this rapidly changing society and massive flood of information, the government needs to revise textbook contents as the occasion demands. But it is impossible to revise paper textbooks on every occasion, so we have decided to develop the digital textbook,’’ a ministry official said.

``When the digital textbook comes into use, sick children who cannot attend school will be able to study and communicate with teachers through their computers. It will also help students in low-income brackets or in rural areas have quality study materials,’’ the official said.

The digital textbook contents will be updated whenever needed. The textbook will also allow network connection to databases of organizations in society, enabling students to use much more information than just textbooks.

The government tried the system on 300 students in four elementary schools last year on an experimental basis, and students, especially those whose school records were in the middle or lower, showed great improvement.