Jung Da-hyun is a reporter at The Korea Times, covering social issues in Korea, including foreign residents, education, environment and politics. Driven by a deep interest in people’s stories, she focuses on investigative and feature reporting through direct interviews and field coverage. She received the Amnesty International Korea Media Award for her “Deepfake Crisis at Schools” series. Reach her at dahyun08@koreatimes.co.kr. Always open to hearing your stories.
Dropouts at universities of education hit record high for 2nd year
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By Jung Da-hyun
Fewer job openings, growing stress, declining respect drive young educators away
With teachers’ authority declining and working conditions worsening, many educators in Korea are now seen as part of the "service industry," expected to tolerate unreasonable demands and frequent parental complaints. Reflecting this growing disillusionment, dropout rates at Korea’s universities of education have reached record highs for the second consecutive year.
According to data from the Korean Educational Development Institute, Sunday, the dropout rate among students at Korea’s education universities stood at 4.2 percent in 2024 — matching the previous year’s figure and marking a record high for the second year in a row.
Until 2018, dropout rates at education universities remained below 1 percent annually. However, the rate began to increase steadily, rising to 1.5 percent in 2019, 1.7 percent in 2020, 2.4 percent in 2021 and 3.2 percent in 2022. The figure then surged to the 4 percent range in 2023 and 2024, nearing that of general universities, where dropout rates reached 5.3 percent and 5.4 percent, respectively.
Not even leading universities of education have been immune to this trend.
According to data from the Ministry of Education, 103 students dropped out of Seoul National University of Education and 105 left Gyeongin National University of Education last year — both regarded as the leading institutions in training elementary school teachers.
Worsening working conditions and shifting values among younger generations are seen as key factors behind the trend.
Teachers are facing increasingly difficult classrooms, as emotional labor grows with the rise in parental complaints, while pay remains modest and protections for their authority still fall short.
According to a survey by the Korea Federation of Teachers’ Associations last year, only 19.7 percent of respondents said they would choose the teaching profession again if given the chance — the lowest figure since the survey began in 2012.
Concerns over teachers’ authority and the handling of parental complaints were thrust into the spotlight in recent years, following the tragedy at Seoul’s Seoi Elementary School in 2023, where a young teacher took her own life allegedly due to pressure from parents.
A similar case occurred this year on Jeju Island, where another teacher reportedly expressed severe distress over ongoing complaints before her death.
Despite the demanding path to becoming a teacher, compensation remains low, with annual salaries lagging far behind those in major companies. Once among the nation’s most competitive institutions, universities of education are now losing top students to other professions as the appeal of a career in teaching continues to wane.
In addition, the teacher certification exam has grown increasingly competitive, as the shrinking student population, driven by the low birthrate, reduces the number of new teaching positions.
In the past, admission to a university of education was seen as a guaranteed path to employment, but that is no longer the case. With fewer openings, the number of teachers who pass the exam but remain unassigned to schools has been rising steadily in recent years.
“Graduates of universities of education have few career options beyond teaching,” said Jung Hye-young, spokesperson for the Seoul Teachers’ Union. “As hiring declines and working conditions deteriorate, an increasing number of students are choosing to leave school early.”