1 in 4 students in Korea nod off in class: survey

Nearly one in four high school students said their classmates tend to sleep during class, according to an Education Ministry survey.

The survey, conducted by the Ministry of Education from Jun. 28 to July 14, polled 4,340 high school first- and second-years. It was aimed at identifying ways to improve student engagement in the classroom.

In response to the statement "My classmates tend to sleep during class," 27.3 percent of students agreed, with 20.2 percent choosing strongly true and 7.1 percent moderately true.

“Simply making lessons more entertaining is insufficient to reduce students sleeping in class,” a survey analyst from the Education Ministry said.

Instead, it suggested comprehensive institutional changes, including alterations to the class system, improvements in teaching-learning evaluation and administrative and financial support for classroom innovation.

Also, while 28.6 percent of regular high school students agreed with the statement, the proportion in elite schools was significantly lower: 17.9 percent in autonomous private schools, 13.1 percent in foreign language schools and 14.3 percent in science schools.

Mathematics was the most common class for students to nod off in, with 29.6 percent reporting seeing classmates asleep, followed by English at 28.9 percent.

A similar question was posed to 1,211 teachers and 15.1 percent said students tend to sleep during class.

Like students, teachers also reported a difference between regular and elite schools.

In regular schools, 15.9 percent of teachers said students sleep during class, while in special-purpose institutions, only 9.5 percent of teachers agreed. For autonomous private school teachers, the figure was 4.7 percent.