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More than one out of three households in Seoul spend 910,000 ($810) or more every month for private tutoring for their children in primary and secondary schools, data showed Tuesday.
Among 261 households who were surveyed by World Research at the request of the Seoul city government, 36.6 percent responded they spend such amount, followed by 410,000 to 500,000 with 11.6 percent and 510,000 to 600,000 won with 9.9 percent.
The category of more than 910,000 won was the highest amount presented in the survey conducted in September.
“Such amount will be a huge burden for households, as the monthly income of a household in Seoul reached about 4 million won,” an official said.
The municipal government conducted the research in September to figure out the effectiveness of its projects that supports public education amid concerns for overspending on private tutoring.
Since 2007, the city spent billions of won in running various programs to lessen the burden on school parents in raising their children. The programs include sessions for self-study and athletic classes on the weekends.
However, 71.3 percent of the 261 said they are not familiar with the program.
An official said the city plans to promote its projects as 65.9 percent of those households whose children participated said they found the programs satisfactory.
In 2011, the country’s spending on private education per student averaged 240,000 won per month, with households in the country spending a total of 20.1 trillion won on it as a whole.
The country spent 8 percent of GDP on education in 2011 in the latest research by the government. It spent 4.9 percent while the remaining 3.1 percent was spent by the private sector. The rate is higher than the OECD average of 6.3 percent. Spending by the private sectors education was the highest among OECD countries, reflecting that the households rely heavily on private tutoring for their children’s education.
English and math are the two major subjects on which households spent the bulk of their money. Spending last year on the two came to monthly averages of 81,000 won and 70,000 won, respectively.
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