Despite governmental efforts to boost spending on public education ― including ongoing efforts to cut college tuition ― Korean parents are still burdened with the hefty price of children’s learning, a new report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development has found.In South Korea, 37.2 percent of the funding for educational institutes came from the private sector, which was the highest of all OECD countries and more than double the OECD average of 16.1 percent. This was in star

Seoul Education Chief Cho Hi-yeon said Thursday the autonomous private high school system has intensified the pecking order of schools in Korea, and suggested that the government revise the law on the de facto elite schools. “The autonomous private high school policy boiled down to ‘vertical diversity,’ when we need to pursue the horizontal diversity of schools,” he said during a press conference at the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education.“In the grand scheme of advancing our education system

Kim Byoung-chul, the president of Korea University, received an honorary degree in business administration Thursday from the school’s rival, Yonsei University.The degree was presented to the 65-year-old scholar in recognition of his contribution to the progress of academia in the country, Korea University said in its press release.“Ever since taking helm of the university in 2011, Kim has been a pioneer in globalization of the university and innovated its management under the slogan of fostering

Slightly more than 60,000 students around the country left school in the 2014 school year due to various reasons such as diseases, financial difficulties and maladjustment, data showed Wednesday.According to the tally compiled by the Ministry of Education, 60,568 students attending elementary, middle and high schools in the country dropped out as of April 1 this year. The figure was 11.2 percent lower than a year ago.The ministry attributed the decrease to the government policy of bolstering car

Belgium's Ghent University opened its local branch in South Korea's Incheon free economic zone Monday, becoming the first European school to open a campus here.A ceremony that also marked the opening of a branch of the University of Utah from the United States was held in the free economic zone in Songdo, also a home to the United Nations Green Climate Fund, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.Ghent University, one of the top-rated schools in the world for bioscience, is expe

The government-initiated drive toward reintroducing state-authored history textbooks has caused rifts within education circles over whether it is appropriate for the state to monopolize education content.Currently, Korea allows multiple publishers to author textbooks and certifies them if their products are up to standard. But a nationwide dispute over a controversial textbook by Kyohak Publishing Co., which was criticized for being substandard in quality and ideologically biased toward conserva

Qualifying for the college admission program for Korean citizens overseas will become more difficult, as authorities revealed plans on Monday to mandate at least three years of middle and high school education outside the country to apply. According to the blueprint by the Education Ministry, a student wishing to apply for the program has to spend at least three years in a foreign country, including one year in high school. The ministry also will toughen the screening process to make sure that n

Just 1 in 3 teachers that applied for early retirement in the second half of 2014 were approved, marking the lowest approval rate of all time, the Education Ministry said Sunday.The unusually low rate of teachers granted early leave is largely due to a lack of funding earmarked for retirees, and is expected to prompt further issues including a lack of openings for new teachers.Prior to the second semester of this school year, an all-time high of 8,212 teachers said they wanted to leave before th