South Korea’s authorities unveiled plans on Monday aimed toward curbing the nation’s burgeoning spending on personal training, which has been blamed for being a significant component behind the nation’s declining fertility fee.
The transfer comes as President Yoon Suk Yeol this month criticized faculty entrance exams that incorporate questions not within the curriculum at public colleges, together with some which have been dubbed “killer questions” due to their complexity.
“We will cut the vicious cycle of killer questions in exams, which leads to excessive competition among students and parents in private education,” Education Minister Lee Ju-ho instructed a briefing.
The ministry additionally vowed to crack down on personal training “cartels” by ramping up efforts to observe what it termed false and exaggerated promoting by personal colleges focusing on examination preparations.
Local media have reported on alleged connections between the personal training business and authorities training officers in drawing up faculty entrance exams that require personal tutoring to grasp.
South Koreans spent a report 26 trillion gained ($19.97 billion) on personal training final yr, regardless of a declining scholar inhabitants, a joint report by the training ministry and the federal government statistics bureau confirmed.
Nearly eight in 10 college students use in personal training merchandise resembling cram colleges, often called “hagwons”, in keeping with the report.
This heavy reliance on personal training has helped lead to South Korea’s having the world’s highest price of elevating a toddler, in keeping with a report final yr, and the world’s lowest start fee.
Killer questions are usually drawn from materials not lined in public college curriculum, opening the door for “hagwons” to advertise their capacity to show college students the right way to resolve them.
Proponents of such questions say they assist faculties choose candidates in a aggressive atmosphere, however Yoon cited the difficulty of equity, noting not each household might afford to pay for extracurricular courses.
Shin So-young, an activist at civic group The World Without Worry About Private Education, stated the deliberate adjustments is probably not sufficient to comprise the competitors.
“The government needs to come up with a broader plan that addresses the question of how to alleviate this excessive competition to get into a few of the best universities,” Shin stated.
Last yr, almost 450,000 highschool seniors throughout the nation and graduates taking the take a look at once more sat for the examination in November. The all-day occasion suspends airline flights through the listening comprehension portion of the English take a look at.
Shares of education-linked firms in South Korea fell on considerations over adjustments in insurance policies.
Woongjin Thinkbig closed down 1.44% for Monday whereas MegaStudyEdu was down 2.11%.
Source: www.dailysabah.com
