By Na Jeong-ju
Staff Reporter

President Lee Myung-bak said Friday the rising household burden for private tutoring and the high youth unemployment rate were the two biggest challenges his administration must tackle to stabilize the livelihoods of ordinary people.

Lee made the remarks during a meeting with the principals of 21 ``Meister High Schools,'' which specialize in certain industrial technologies to help students get jobs upon graduation and become respected technicians in their own fields.

``This is why we are nurturing Meister schools. The administration will provide full support to help graduates of these schools become great contributor to the economy,'' Lee said. ``Students here don't need private education and can get jobs without difficulties. We have to nurture more of these schools.''

The government has designated 21 industrial high schools as Meister schools. The number will increase to 35 next year and to 50 by 2011, according to the Ministry of Knowledge Economy.

President Lee has repeatedly called for measures to drastically reform public education in a bid to reduce the country's private tutoring burden.

``It is very important to eliminate private education, but now even my daughter does not trust the government's pledge to do so. The education ministry must speed up efforts to reduce private education costs, which are burdening households,'' Lee said in a recent Cabinet meeting. ``In the past, those in the lower-income bracket could get out of poverty if they studied hard. But with private education taking up more and more weight, people from poor backgrounds are suffering.''

Days after the meeting, the governing Grand National Party proposed a 7-point action plan to slash private education costs.

Under the plan, hagwon will be banned from offering lessons to students after 10 p.m., universities will not consider academic achievement scores during the first year of high school in recruiting and schools will be required to activate after-school programs for students.

The proposal also calls for better evaluation of teachers, an increase in the number of art and sports schools and improvement in the quality of lessons provided by the Education Broadcasting System, a nationwide television network, to draw more viewers.

Analysts say that to help households cut private education expenditure, the government should improve the public education sector and provide more higher education opportunities to students from poor households.

According to the National Statistical Office, household expenditure for children's private education rose to 18.7 trillion won ($14 billion) last year, up 1.3 trillion won or 7 percent from 2007, with each family spending an average of 1.1 million won annually.

jj@koreatimes.co.kr