Korean parents’ education fever remains high

Her elder son who is preparing for an Ivy League school at a prestigious foreign language high school in Seoul may receive the best school education in Korea.

However, his mother, Park Sung-hee, says she has never reduced the family’s spending on private education.

“Even though you enter a good school, the situation is the same at least for the students at the school. In order not to lag behind others, you have to study harder, unavoidably depending on private education,” said Park, who spends more than 2 million won ($1,833) per month on child education.

For decades, the government has tried every possible means to soothe the education fever of enthusiastic Korean parents by putting more emphasis on improving public school education.

Unfortunately, no meaningful progress has been witnessed thus far.

A report on Tuesday found that the quality of public education has almost no impact on parents’ spending on private education.

The report by the Korea Institute of Finance surveyed parents of middle school students to analyze their demand for private education.

For the study, a research team led by Hanyang University professor Park Cheol-sung, divided parents’ satisfaction with public education into nine categories.

The report said that the more parents were satisfied with public education, the less they were dependent on private education.

However, the difference was almost negligable, especially for third-year middle school students preparing for high school, the report explained.

The spending gap between the most and least satisfied parents was 20,000 won for first grade students, 30,000 won for second, and 6,000 won per month for third graders.

According to the report, as children advanced to higher grades, the average spending on private education decreased by 5,000 won for first grade students, 7,600 for second graders, and 1,400 for third graders.

“Even though a better school education improves parents’ satisfaction level, that fact was found to have a very limited impact on their spending on private education,” said Park, the professor.

Considering that there was almost no difference when it came to parents of third-year students, Park said, the purpose of private education seemed to be more about competition rather than academic pursuit.

“In order to become a winner in competition, they would think they cannot expel others under the public education system,” he said, emphasizing efforts to change the competitive environment.

By Lee Ji-yoon (jylee@heraldcorp.com)