By Bae Ji-sook
Staff Reporter
The government will provide 150 million won ($125,000) to each of 400 selected schools nationwide to refurbish their after-school programs and other classes, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology said Wednesday.
The 60-billion won project is expected to halve private education costs for middle- or lower-income families here, it said.
Selected schools will be required to present a curriculum that will make studying at private educational institutes, or hagwon, unnecessary. The headmasters will be given full authority to hire additional teachers or administrative staff; provide incentives to teachers; and buy new equipment or remodel classrooms.
Schools in urban areas where the hagwon market is large and the impact on living is more significant will be the first to be considered. But rural areas or regions with a significant low-income population will also be targeted.
The ministry will monitor whether the classes actually reduce parents' expenditures on hagwons. Those who fail to meet the standards will be eliminated from next year's subsidy.
The amount of the subsidy will differ depending on the size of the school, and will shrink to 100 million won next year to give more of a ``sense of responsibility'' to schools. The number of benefiting schools will rise to 1,000 by 2012.
Whether the project will really be able to cut into the private education business is dubious. The private education market has grown to a 20 trillion-won industry, making it highly unlikely that a 60 billion won program will cause a significant change.
An elementary school teacher in southern Seoul said the plan will not impress teachers or parents.
``We see students already accustomed to hagwons, which require hundreds of thousands of won a month. The staff for after school classes will not be able to compete with that unless they are very passionate and driven,'' she said.
``After all, regular teachers will be reluctant to volunteer to teach such classes because they pay less and require a huge amount of extra work. I don't think temporary low-paid teachers paid will be able to compete with renowned hagwon teachers.''
She added that some star lecturers at hagwons ``are paid hundreds of millions of won a year.''
``Moreover, (the schools) will be evaluated according to whether they can make their students quit their hagwon ― that's a lot of pressure,'' she said.
Jeong Won-il, spokesperson of People Independent from Private Education, said what the government suggests cannot be the solution to the current hagwon or private tutoring craze.
``The Lee Myung-bak government has constantly emphasized competition. If you are in an extreme competition, it is very natural to seek supplemental education outside the school,'' he said. ``The after-school classes were supposed to be more fun and creative ones, developing a student's talent through music, art or physical education classes. Now hagwons have just relocated into school classrooms,'' he said.