First graders go searching a classroom throughout new pupil orientation at Ujang Elementary College in Seoul, Jan. 6. Yonhap
For the primary time, fewer than 300,000 youngsters are anticipated to enter first grade in Korea this 12 months, underscoring the results of the nation’s persistently low birthrate on its schooling system.
In keeping with the Ministry of Training’s revised projection report, launched Tuesday, an estimated 298,178 youngsters are anticipated to start out first grade this 12 months.
The ministry had earlier projected that first grade enrollment would fall under 300,000 in 2027. However officers stated that current shifts in birthrates and faculty attendance in addition to general inhabitants decline now make it seemingly that the edge shall be crossed this 12 months.
The fast decline within the variety of first graders displays the steep drop in school-age inhabitants over the previous twenty years.
Korean Academic Improvement Institute (KEDI) knowledge reveals that the variety of first graders dropped under 700,000 in 2000, down from 713,500 in 1999. The determine fell even sooner after 2008, plummeting from 534,816 in 2008 to 468,233 a 12 months later. In recent times, the tempo of decline has accelerated once more from 401,752 in 2023 to 353,713 in 2024 and 324,040 final 12 months.
In comparison with 2023, this 12 months’s predicted variety of incoming first graders marks a drop of roughly 25.8 p.c — a decline of greater than 100,000 college students in simply three years. The ministry tasks that enrollment will proceed to fall, to 277,674 in 2027, 262,309 in 2028 and 232,268 in 2030, earlier than reaching 220,471 by 2031 — simply over two-thirds of final 12 months’s complete.
The entire variety of elementary, center and highschool college students nationwide can be anticipated to fall under 5 million this 12 months, from 5.01 million in 2025 to 4.84 million in 2026. The determine is forecast to shrink to three.81 million by 2031.
The shrinking pupil inhabitants has already pressured some colleges, significantly in rural areas, to shut due lack of scholars, whereas universities outdoors the Seoul metropolitan space are likewise struggling to fill freshmen quotas.
This demographic shift is instantly triggering a recruitment cliff for educators. For this 12 months, the deliberate recruitment of latest public elementary faculty academics has been slashed by some 27 p.c to three,113 nationwide.
