Korea Bans Level Tests for Young Children as Private Tutoring Remains Expensive

In Seoul’s Gangnam District, Daechi-dong, Kim, a 44-year-old parent raising two elementary-school children, spends about 4 million won a month on after-school tutoring. The mix includes essay-writing, English, mathematics, and Chinese lessons, plus extracurricular coaching such as rope jumping, taekwondo, and soccer. He notes that his total is relatively modest compared with peers who send their children to three or more academies a day.

Nearby, another parent, Kim, 45, sends his child to a famous mathematics academy and pays more than 1 million won each month for the three core subjects. He said that, at first, he found the idea of private tutoring hard to accept, but after hearing how common it was, he decided to follow suit.

While Korea’s birthrate decline has tempered overall spending, the burden of private tutoring remains concentrated among families who use it. Last year, the total private tutoring expenditure for elementary to high-school students stood at 27.5 trillion won. From 2020 to 2024, spending rose for four consecutive years, but last year fell 5.7% from the year before. The tutoring participation rate was 75.7%, down 4.3 percentage points year on year.

The market shows clearer polarization. The share of students who do not receive any tutoring has risen, but among those who do participate, per-student spending climbed to 604,000 won per month—the highest on record since the data series began in 2007, up 2.0% from the previous year. Including non-participants, the average per student was 458,000 won per month.

Income plays a decisive role in this gap. Among households with a monthly income of 8 million won or more, per-student tutoring expenditure reached 662,000 won, while households earning under 3 million won spent 192,000 won. The overall gap between high- and low-income families was about 3.4 times, with participation rates at 84.9% for the higher-income group and 52.8% for the lower-income group. A parent in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, said the pressure from neighbors who are pursuing early learning makes him worry his child will fall behind if he does not enroll.

Experts say addressing the trend will require a multi-faceted policy approach. Park Ju-hyeong, a professor at Gyeongin National University of Education, urged strengthening public education to absorb diverse learning needs and a systematic mapping of demand by grade and subject to tailor responses. KEDI senior research fellow Kwon Soon-hyung added that beyond public education, policymakers should consider curbing high-cost private tutoring and reforming college admission processes.

In a separate development, the National Assembly approved an amendment to the Private Education Act banning level tests at academies that target very young children, specifically those for four- and seven-year-olds. The measure is aimed at limiting early-introduction testing in the private tutoring sector, a hallmark of the highly competitive Korean education system.

Why this matters beyond Korea: Korea’s private tutoring market is among the most developed in the world, with a clear link between parental expectations, social equality, and educational outcomes. For the United States, the trends underscore how strong demand for high-stakes exam performance can drive private education markets, influence edtech startups, and shape policy debates about public schooling versus private supplementation. As Korea weighs tighter regulation of expensive tutoring and changes to college admissions, U.S. educators and policymakers may monitor whether similar pressures influence U.S. families, the cost of supplementing public education, and opportunities for cross-border education technology collaboration and investment.