Korean, English, and Math are most important in Korea because of
entrance examination. For instance, even 3 textbooks (Literature,
Grammar, Korean) are used to teach Korean. The difference between
Japanese education is that although Korea is also within Chinese
character culture area, Chinese characters aren't teached so much.
Since the 2nd half of 1980s, there has been movements to use no other
characters than Hangul. Consequently, usage of Chinese characters are
rarely seen in recent Korea. Chinese characters are rarely used also
in educational scenes.
In Korea, students start studying English in junior high schools
as a primary foreign language. In high schools, students also take a
secondary foreign language. As a secondary foreign language, female
students tend to study French, and male students tend to study German.
(In Japan, there are high schools where students study and don't study
secondary foreign language, but every Korean high school students do.)
On the other hand, in commercial and industrial high schools, students
tend to study Japanese. High schools can be divided into 4 types;
general high schools, commercial HS, industrial HS, and agricultural
HS. Commercial high schools are for female students, and industrial
high schools are fore male students.
There are school textbooks compiled by the state in Korea. This
government-designated textbook is written by Ministry of Education,
and for some subjects, these are the only textbooks. Ethics and
History (Only Korean history) are of this kind. It has become a
subject of discussion in Korean educational world to have only one
textbook on these subjects.