By Kang Seung-woo
Household spending on education in the first three months of 2011 took the sharpest fall in six years due to fewer students and more tuition exemption benefits, a government agency said Monday.
According to a report from Statistics Korea, local households with more than two family members across the nation spent an average of 292,357 won ($270.72) per month on education-related expenses, down 4.7 percent from 306,791 won a year earlier.
The decline marks the steepest since the 6.2 percent drop recorded in the first quarter of 2005.
The report said that a 4.6 percent, or 6,392 won, contraction in private education played a major role in lowering the overall spending on education, as it accounted for 44.3 percent of the total fall.
“A smaller number of students and more extracurricular and online study programs provided by schools and public educational offices played a role in less money being spent on private academies,” the statistical office said.
“In the future, the number of students will decline at a faster pace, so household spending on education is likely to continue a downward trend.”
The state-run office expects that the number of students attending elementary, middle and high schools will stand at 7.06 million this year, down from 7.32 million in 2010. Compared with 10 years ago, the estimated number is about 1 million students lower.
Along with less private tuition payments, the reduction of fees for public middle and high schools also helped education spending to post its sharpest year-on-year drop in the January-to-March period.
The payments, which tallied 21,001 won last year, shed 26.8 percent to 15,377 won this year, the loss representing 39 percent of the entire drop in education outlays. The decline of 26.8 percent is the sharpest since the government started collecting data in 2003.
Efforts by regional educational offices to allow more tuition exemptions and reduce school management-related expenses contributed to less money being spent on secondary education, it added.
“From this year, five local education offices in Gwangju and Gyeonggi, Gangwon, North Jeolla and South Gyeongsang Provinces stopped collecting school support fees of 50,000 won on a monthly basis from each middle school in their region,” said an official of Statistics Korea.