Even with Increased Public Education Funding, Students Attend Hagwons... Last Year, Private Education Expenses Per Person Exceeded 300,000 KRW per Month

[Asia Economy Reporter Su-yeon Woo] Despite the government increasing fiscal investment to strengthen public education, the proportion of private education in the domestic education landscape has shown little sign of decreasing. Last year, the participation rate of elementary, middle, and high school students in private education reached 74%, and the per capita private education expenditure surpassed 300,000 KRW per month, indicating a steady increase in reliance on private education.

According to the report "Current Status of Education Indicators and Analysis of the Impact of Private Education in Korea" released on the 27th by the Korea Economic Research Institute, the average monthly private education expenditure per elementary, middle, and high school student last year was 321,000 KRW, marking an all-time high and exceeding the 300,000 KRW range. Additionally, the private education participation rate last year was 74.8%, a 7 percentage point increase compared to 2016. This means that 7.5 out of 10 domestic elementary, middle, and high school students received private education.

The report analyzed that students who received private education are more likely to rank in the top tier of school grades compared to those who did not. Using data from the Youth Panel Survey for empirical analysis, it was found that receiving private education in mathematics increased the probability of being in the top tier by 56.3%, and by 53.2% in English, indicating a significant impact of private education on academic achievement.

The report concluded that the high academic achievement of Korean students, who maintain a top global ranking, is largely influenced by private education. At the same time, it pointed out the reality that despite public education fiscal investment in Korea exceeding the OECD average, the participation rate in private education is still increasing.

The student-to-teacher ratio, an indicator of educational conditions by country, was close to the OECD average with 16.5 students per teacher in elementary schools, 13.5 in middle schools, and 12.8 in high schools domestically. On the other hand, the hourly wage level of public elementary and secondary school teachers was found to be among the highest in OECD countries.

Salary per teaching hour of public elementary school teachers (based on PPP converted dollars, 15 years of experience) / Source=Korea Economic Research Institute

The average annual salary of a 15-year veteran public elementary school teacher in Korea was $56,587, about $10,000 higher than the OECD average. The annual teaching hours for elementary school teachers were approximately 676 hours, about 100 hours less than the OECD average of 778 hours. Calculating the hourly wage by dividing the annual salary (for 15 years of experience) by annual teaching hours, Korea’s hourly wage reached about 1.4 to 1.6 times the OECD average, ranking 3rd to 5th highest among OECD countries.

In conclusion, the report argued that to enhance the quality of domestic public education in the future, it is necessary to strengthen teacher professionalism and restructure investments to focus on supporting teaching and learning activities to reinforce public education. To this end, it is necessary to reorganize teachers’ salaries from the current seniority-based system to a job-based and performance-based system, and it mentioned that improving the operation plan of the teacher competency development evaluation would be more effective than abolishing it to strengthen teacher professionalism.

Jin-seong Yoo, a research fellow at the Korea Economic Research Institute, stated, "As the educational gap for children from low-income families is widening due to COVID-19, it is desirable to improve educational welfare by strengthening educational support for low-income students rather than indiscriminately expanding free welfare."