Lee Yeon-woo is a financial journalist at The Korea Times. Her wide range of reporting includes policies, macroeconomics, stock market, companies and even crypto. She is passionate about connecting the dots in Korean finance and making it easier for foreign nationals to understand. Based on her previous experience as a national reporter, she also has a keen interest in social issues within the sector, including gender equality and ESG. Your tips and insights are always appreciated. You can send them to yanu@koreatimes.co.kr.
Remorse, pride intersect as Seoul's high school set for closure
An empty classroom is seen in a high school located in Gyeonggi Province. Korea Times file
By Lee Yeon-woo
Experts call for shift in education policy as school sizes become smaller due to population decline
By Lee Yeon-woo
A high school junior student, who asked to only be identified by his surname Yoo, has recently received several phone calls from his relatives, friends and other acquaintances after media reports stated that his school, Dobong High School, will be closed in 2024.
“They all ask me if I am okay with the news,” he told The Korea Times. “Of course not. It would be a lie if I say I am totally fine with it. But to be honest with you, I feel so proud to be a student of this school and part of the Class of 2023 who will be the last graduates. I am sad about the news, though.”
He had feelings of sadness and pride about his school as he recalls clearly how he felt two years ago when he was admitted to the school.
“I felt my heart sink as I realized my chances to go to my favorite university three years later would be a rough ride,” he said, adding that Dobong High School was then among one of the least favorite schools among parents and students as it was, and still is, a small school.
His attitude toward the school, however, changed a lot after he began attending it. The low student-teacher ratio allowed him and his classmates to interact closely with their teachers, paving the way for great student-teacher interactions. He said teachers are caring and there is a lot he could learn from his classmates.
Yoo will be one of the last graduates of Dobong High School, located in northern Seoul. Established in 2003, the school's two decade history has been eventful. Due to its location in Seoul's northernmost region that shares its border with Gyeonggi Province, the school was destined to be unpopular. There were several other high schools established earlier in the same neighborhood and being located near Nowon District, the heartland of Seoul's northeast, it was in the vicinity of several competitive high schools. It was no surprise that the school had trouble attracting talented students.
Facing the chronic shortages of students, the school was designated as a public charter school in 2010. Five years later, it became a general high school again. Chronic low enrollments have continued until recently when the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education (SMOE) finally decided to close it down in 2024. The school took in 45 freshmen this year.
Its scheduled closure hints that Seoul, the nation's most crowded, largest city, is no immune to population decline. Schools have shut down one after another as a consequence of the nation's falling birth rate which is the lowest among the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) nations.
"We agreed that running schools will become tougher as student numbers decline. Twelve students left voluntarily, and we surveyed the remaining 33 students to hear their opinions. Every freshman agreed on moving to another school, so we relocated them to nearby schools last month,” an official from the SMOE told The Korea Times.
Students take a test in a classroom. Korea Times file
Korea's total birth rate continuously hit record lows as the average number of children a woman gives birth to in a lifetime stood at 0.81 children in 2021, leading to the sharpest decline in the school-age population.
Statistics Korea predicts that the school-age population will be reduced to 4.95 million by 2035 and 4.81 million by 2050. According to a report released by SMOE, the number of students in elementary, middle and high school in Seoul decreased from 1.03 million in 2017 to 900,000 in 2021.
As of 2021, three elementary schools and one middle school have already closed down in Seoul. Four more high schools, are under consideration for being closed, according to the SMOE.
Experts say that the closure of schools is inevitable amid the continued population decline. Even so, they claim that the government should step up more actively to rearrange policies and revise the current curriculum to offer quality education to the lower number of students.
"Over the past decades, students received cramming education in school since there are so many students per teacher. Korean society has changed a lot and now we face a declining student population due to the falling birthrate. Voices are being raised concerning how education should transform in line with the new era. The government should put more investments into education now. It's time for radical surgery on education policy,” Song Gi-chang, a professor of education at Sookmyung Women's University, said.
The professor insisted on lowering the number of students per class and putting more investment into universities to cultivate more teachers tailored for education in the future.
Hong Hoo-jo, a professor of education at Korea University, suggested specialization as a way to overcome the struggles of underperforming students.
"Specialization programs in high schools are more important than closing schools arbitrarily. High schools can attract students by specializing in diplomacy, business, healthcare or liberal arts,” Hong said.
“Under the three major fundamentals of education ― teachers, students, and the curriculum. ― old curriculums are the ones that should be fixed up first in this situation.”