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The South Korean government has announced plans to curb the growing spending on private tutoring classes, which is believed to be one of the reasons for the country's declining birth rate.
The move comes a month after South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said the country's university entrance exams contained many questions outside the curriculum of public schools.
Statistics from the Ministry of Education and Statistics Korea show that in 2022, South Koreans will spend a record 26 trillion won (about 20 billion USD) on private tutoring for their children, despite a 0.9% decrease in the number of students enrolled. Notably, 8 out of 10 students take private tutoring or attend cram schools (also known as Hagwon) across the country. The pressure to rely on the private education system makes the cost of raising children in South Korea the highest in the world, leading to a reluctance to have children, causing South Korea's birth rate to drop to the lowest in the world.
Speaking at a press conference announcing the plan, Education Minister Lee Ju-ho pledged to eliminate “tricky questions” in exams that have led to fierce competition between parents and students for tutoring classes. The ministry is also looking for ways to ensure fairness in university entrance exams.
To achieve this goal, South Korea will set up an independent committee to filter out “tricky questions” and assess the fairness of the test. Teachers involved in writing the test will be banned from selling question sets, providing lectures or providing information related to the college entrance exam for a certain period of time.
In addition, the Korean Ministry of Education also controls the private education system, increasing supervision of exaggerated and false advertising. The official university entrance exam often contains difficult questions, forcing Korean parents and students to seek answers from private tutoring centers in the hope that they will achieve their goals when taking the exam.
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