By Chung Ah-young
Staff Reporter


South Korea topped the list in private educational spending among members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), according to a report.

According to Education at a Glance (EAG) published Wednesday by the OECD and based on the educational resources of 30 member and 19 non-member nations, Korea’s educational spending accounted for 7.1 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) in 2002.

The figure was much higher than Germany’s 5.3 percent, Britain’s 5.9 percent, Japan’s 4.7 percent and France’s 6.1 percent.

However, the Korean government only shouldered 4.2 percent of the GDP in educational spending, lower than the average of 5.1 percent for other OECD members.

Meanwhile, Korea’s private educational spending represented 2.9 percent of the GDP, much higher than the 0.7 percent average among the OECD members.

The EAG shows that in elementary and middle school, Korean parents spend 0.9 percent of the GDP on their children.

However, the figure increased to 1.9 percent for higher education, sharply higher than the OECD average 0.3 percent.

The report maintained that increased spending on high school education resulted from the nation’s educational structure in which private tutoring or cram schools consume more than 80 percent of funds for the higher educational system, leading to mounting spending on tuition fees.

Meanwhile, the number of Korean students per class is 34.7 at elementary school, and 35.2 at middle school, larger than the OECD average of 21.6 and 23.9 at elementary and middle schools respectively.

The number of Korean students per teacher is 21 at kindergarten, 30.2 at elementary school, 19.9 at middle school and 16 at high school. These figures are much higher than the OECD average of 14.4 at kindergarten, 16.5 at elementary school, 14.3 at middle school and 13 at high school.

Also, according to the recent survey released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) in August, the top 10 percent of high-income households spent a monthly average of 292,000 won in the second quarter of this year on private education, eight times as much as the 36,000 won spent by the bottom 10 percent.

The disparity in private education spending between rich and poor widened from 6.3 times in the first quarter of the year to 7.6 times in the fourth quarter of 2004.

chungay@koreatimes.co.kr