As someone who taught at all levels of the South Korean school system for about fifteen years, it’s not that bad. Teachers are way way more respected than in American schools.
Kids are generally happy up until second year of middle school then the admin tightens the nuts on them and forces pretty rigorous testing. Schooling shifts from a more western style school to basically spending all day every day learning to do well on the college entrance exam. It’s pretty soul crushing for students and teachers. They really just have to replace their college entry exam with something that can be taken more than once a year. That would solve a lot of problems with the system they have in place.