Photo demands from parents are changing kindergarten classrooms in Korea

An image generated by artificial intelligence depicting a kindergarten classroom

Day care teachers in Seoul are spending hours each day photographing students, a growing administrative mandate that has become routine in many early childhood classrooms. While children folded paper carnations and made coupons for Parents’ Day last week, teachers focused on photographing them for their parents.

"On days with special events, like field trips, we take as many as 100 photos," the teacher said. "It’s not as if we take only 10 pictures just because there are 10 children in the class. We have to upload the good ones. Otherwise, parents complain that their child’s expression looks bad or that only their child had their eyes closed."

For about a decade, day care centers and kindergartens have used parent communication apps such as Kids Note and Schoolbell-e to send parents photos of their children. The apps were meant to show parents what young children do at school or day care. Teachers now say the practice has become expected work, adding to their workload and reducing instructional and caregiving time.

Smiling photos, strained classrooms

Teachers say the reality outside the frame of those smiling photos can turn chaotic. Parent complaints push them to choose flattering photos, include every child in individual shots and make sure group photos do not appear to favor one child over another. But children constantly move, and classrooms do not pause for the camera.

Public kindergartens face the same pressure despite their reputation for better working conditions.

An eighth-year teacher at a public kindergarten attached to an elementary school in North Chungcheong Province uploads photos of the children in her class once a week. She said now records videos and captures still images after parents complained early in her career that her photos were not good enough.

"Parents who received photos every day from day care centers expect a similar standard from kindergartens, so it is hard not to upload them," she said. "The frequency may differ, but 99 percent of kindergartens send photos, whether they are private or public."

The work peaks during the end-of-year ceremony season, when teachers make photo albums documenting each child’s year. Teachers select photos one by one and arrange them into albums, a task they say falls entirely on them. Teachers say the burden has grown as parents increasingly see regular photos as a mark of a "good kindergarten."

A shrinking child population has intensified competition for enrollment, making institutions more sensitive to parent expectations and word of mouth. According to the Ministry of Data and Statistics, the number of children aged 3 to 5 eligible for kindergarten fell 34.5 percent from 1.257 million in 2020 to 823,000 in 2025.

The chart generated by artificial intelligence shows the number of children aged 3 to 5 eligible for kindergarten in Korea in 2020 and 2025.

When classrooms are staged for photos

Teachers say the bigger problem is not only the added workload but the way photo demands can distort classroom priorities. As taking, selecting and uploading photos becomes routine, activities that look good in photos can crowd out quieter but meaningful educational activities.

A teacher who has worked for more than 10 years at kindergartens and day care centers in the Seoul metropolitan area said some children dislike craft activities. But teachers worry about how parents will react if only one child has no photo.

"Sometimes teachers force children to participate or have them pose with another child’s work," the teacher said. "We can respect their interests and let them not participate, and after the activities, we should give them time to play freely. But driven by pressure to include every child, we hurry them to finish or line them up to take photos."

Comedian Lee Su-ji appears in a satirical video about the reality of kindergarten teachers, recently uploaded to her YouTube channel. The video shows a teacher continuing to handle leftover work even after finishing late-night duties. Captured from Lee Su-ji’s YouTube channel

The teacher said direct engagement with a child would be more educationally meaningful than taking photos, "but the reality is that we cannot do that."

The North Chungcheong teacher made a similar point. "Static activities such as music sessions or reading are difficult to show through photos," she said. "Because of photos, there are times when we organize activities around craft activities that produce tangible crafts or highly visual outcomes."

Experts say parents need to reconsider viewing day care centers and kindergartens as service providers. Kim Won-bae, a kindergarten teacher and policy research director at the Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union, said safe, natural group photos should be enough.

"The problem now is that teachers feel obligated to take photos," Kim said. "This culture can improve only when people recognize that the more teachers focus on taking photos, the less time they have to pay attention to children."

Park Chang-hyun, a research fellow at the Korea Institute of Child Care and Education, said teachers’ photo duties have become work to prove that educational activities took place.

"Teachers, heads of institutions and parents should discuss this together and alleviate the administrative burden," Park said.

This article from the Hankook Ilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Times, is translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Times.