Daegu's Public Education Reforms Drive Korea's Largest Private Tutoring Decline
Daegu City’s Office of Education announced that the 2025 nationwide survey on private education expenditures showed the Daegu region recorded the largest drop in private tutoring participation, shrinking by 6.5 percentage points. The average monthly per-student spending on private tutoring fell by 31,000 won, a significant decline in the context of the survey’s history.
The findings come from the Ministry of Education and the National Data Agency’s 2025 survey of private education costs for elementary to high school students. Daegu’s figures are part of a broader national snapshot, but the city reported the steepest year-on-year decrease among regions.
The Daegu Education Office credited several policy and program factors for the decline, including IB program–based instruction and assessment reform, the use of textbook-style AI and digital learning materials, and expanded participation in 늘봄 (Neulbom) after-school programs and related after-school activities. These moves aim to reduce the need for private tutoring by strengthening classroom learning.
Daegu currently operates the most IB World Schools in Korea, with 33 such schools. When including schools that have expressed interest, are candidates, or are foundational IB-adopting schools, the total rises to 104 institutions sharing IB philosophy to guide instruction and assessment reform.
The IB framework in Daegu is associated with a shift away from traditional knowledge delivery toward inquiry-based learning and a greater emphasis on process-oriented assessment, including essays, projects, and portfolios. Officials say these changes are driving classroom innovation across the public education system.
Alongside the IB reforms, Daegu has actively deployed textbook-style AI and digital learning materials introduced last year to analyze students’ learning levels and patterns and to deliver personalized content. The city designates 117 AI/digital-education innovation schools across elementary (46), middle (35), and high (36) levels to expand technology-enabled education.
늘봄 after-school programming has been expanded to include elementary students up to the second grade, broadening access. Among first- and second-grade students, 30,822 were eligible and 25,980 participated, a participation rate of 84.3%.
In addition to after-school programs, Daegu’s approach includes several in-school supports: a 1-class/2-teacher system, Dodream School, a responsible-education grade system, and learning-support initiatives. The district’s Brain-Based Personalized Support Center provides targeted tutoring, learning coaching, and assistance for students with borderline intellectual functioning and dyslexia. Daegu also uses EBS video tutoring with university mentors for subjects with high private-tutoring demand, such as mathematics and English.
Education Superintendent Kang Eun-hee said the combination of IB-based instruction, assessment innovation, AI/digital materials, and 늘봄/after-school expansion is showing results. She emphasized that Daegu will continue tailoring these measures to local conditions to create an educational environment where students can grow primarily through public schooling.
For U.S. readers, the Daegu story highlights a growing trend in public education embedding international standards, AI-enabled personalization, and extended school-day programs to curb reliance on private tutoring and to improve equity. It also underscores the potential interest in cross-border collaboration with Korean institutions on IB implementation and education-technology tools, and it points to how a major city in Korea is approaching workforce-ready skills and lifelong learning through school-led innovation.