By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter
Household spending on private education increased last year to 21 trillion won, up 3.4 percent from the previous year.
However, government officials said the rate had decreased by 0.9 percent on a year to year comparison.
The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology announced survey results on private education costs Tuesday. Many Korean parents spend money on private education in order to help their children enroll in prestigious universities and the Lee Myung-bak administration has vowed to cut the cost of private education by half through an overhaul of the system.
The ministry polled, in cooperation with the national statistics agency, some 44,000 parents from about 1,000 primary and secondary schools across the country last June and October. Nearly 75 percent of the parents questioned paid money for private education.
Officials say household spending on private education had increased steeply but the trend began to slow down last year. "After Korea recovered from its sluggish economy last year, it saw an increase of its GNP. But private education costs declined," Lee Ju-ho, first vice minister of the ministry, told reporters during a press conference.
He added that this means that the government's project, including controlling illegal private cram schools or hagwon, and restricting the operating hours of hagwon and private education establishments, as well as free school programs worked well.
According to the statistics, private education spending per student averaged 242,000 won a month. The Seoul Metropolitan City topped spending with the average private education cost at 331,000 won followed by Gyeonggi Province at 269,000 won and Daegu at 251,000 won. South Jeolla Province was the last in the list at 157,000 won.
The average of 242,000 won per student a month was spent for private education in the first half of last year, but the figure slightly decreased to 241,000 won in the second half of the year.
Although the number of students studying at private cram schools went down by 2.5 percentage points, those paying for private tutoring and group tutoring increased by 1.4 percent and 1.1 percent, respectively.
Parents spent the most on English paying an average 80,000 won per month for a child, and an average of 67,000 won for math, followed by social and natural science costing 16,000 won. Spending on Korean language and literature, and essay writing increased by 4.3 percent and 14.3 percent, respectively.
It is the first time the ministry released statistics sorted by the city and province. The survey results will be reflected when the ministry evaluates each city and provincial office of education.