The number of primary and secondary school students in South Korea is expected to fall below 5 million in two years.
Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, February 13th According to the data released by Korea Education Development Institute on the 12th, with the increasingly severe problem of low fertility rate, the number of students in primary schools, junior high schools and senior high schools in South Korea is expected to fall below 5 million in 2026.
On May 27th, 2020, students from Shilun Primary School in Seoul, South Korea returned to school accompanied by their parents. Xinhua News Agency (photo by Sang Ho Lee)
The data shows that the number of primary and secondary school students in South Korea is about 5.13 million this year, and it is expected to decrease to about 4.83 million by 2026. In 2029, this number is expected to further drop to about 4.275 million.
The number of freshmen in primary schools in South Korea is also decreasing rapidly. According to the evaluation data, there were about 401,000 freshmen in primary schools in South Korea last year, which is expected to drop to about 348,000 this year, and will fall below 300,000 in 2026, and will be further reduced to about 245,000 in 2029.
With the sharp decrease of school-age population, the Korean government has introduced a policy to reduce the number of teaching staff in public schools. According to the teacher recruitment plan released by the Korean Ministry of Education in April last year, from 2024 to 2027, South Korea will reduce the number of newly hired teachers year by year. In 2027, the number of newly recruited teachers will drop to 2,600-2,900, a decrease of up to 27% compared with 3,561 in 2023.
In recent years, the phenomenon of late marriage and unmarried in Korean society has gradually increased, and the fertility rate has been declining. In 2022, the number of newborns in Korea was 249,000, and the total fertility rate was 0.78, both of which were the lowest since Korea had relevant records. The total fertility rate of 0.78 is far below the 2.1 needed to ensure the stability of the country’s population.
According to a preliminary estimate by the Korea Statistics Office, the number of newborns in the country may be less than 230,000 in 2023, which is nearly half of that eight years ago. (Zhang Jing)
Source: Xinhua News Agency
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