It’s a tough life being a kid in South Korea. When you aren’t rote-learning at school, it’s off to cram classes till midnight for more.
Any deviant behaviour - a fashionably bouffant hairstyle, for example - is swiftly dealt with by fearsome teachers wielding the nearest cutting implement.
Despite laws against corporal punishment in South Korean schools, it has emerged that one in five high school boys has had their hair forcibly cut by a teacher.
Most teachers, even those as dedicated as our Korean counterparts, do not hold a Higher National Diploma in tonsorial arts. So they simply hack off enough hair to force transgressors of the “off the collar” rule to get a crew cut.
Girls’ barnets are also at risk, with 6.4 per cent having received an unwanted cut and style.
