Seoul sees record-low No. of students amid plummeting birthrate

New students are seated in a classroom at Seoul's Mullae Elementary School after an entrance ceremony, March 4. Korea Times photo by Lee Han-ho

Seoul has seen a record low in the number of students amid the declining birthrate and rising housing prices in the capital, a government report showed Wednesday.

According to an annual report by the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education (SMOE), the number of elementary, middle and high school students in Seoul stands at 768,948 as of 2024. The figure is 2 percent lower than the previous year's 784,871 and 8.5 percent lower compared to 849,933 in 2020.

The downward trend is the result of the declining birthrate. Seoul's total fertility rate, or the number of children that would be born to a woman, has been falling steadily from 0.59 in 2022 to 0.55 in 2023.

The figure is the lowest among 17 metropolitan cities and provinces nationwide and lower than the national average of 0.72 and the global average of 2.3.

The number of elementary, middle and high schools decreased by one and stands at 1,317. The number of classes is 34.428, which is 2.2 percent lower than last year's 35,205.

The number of elementary school classes decreased by 2.5 percent to 17,438, while those of middle and high schools went down by 1.5 percent and 2.2 percent, respectively, to 8,233 and 8,763.

The average number of students per class is 23.4, which is slightly more than last year's 23.3. Among them, the number of elementary school students per class was 22.1, down from the previous year's 22.4.

However, the number of middle school students per class jumped by 0.4 percent from 22.4 to 24.9, while high school students increased by 2.9 percent from 23.8 per class to 24.5 during the same period.

"The city is facing a lot of difficulties in organizing appropriate classes due to the reduction in the number of teachers at the Ministry of Education due to the decline in the school-age population," the SMOE said in a statement.

"The SMOE plans to continue making efforts to improve educational conditions, such as operating an appropriate number of classes and reducing the number of students per class, taking into account changes in the number of students by region and school."