According to the Ministry of Education and Korea Educational Development Institute, the number of elementary, middle, and high school students in South Korea has dropped to the 5.6 million range this year due to the accelerating low birth rate trend. This is a decrease of nearly 100,000 students compared to last year and a reduction of over 1.3 million students compared to 10 years ago. The number of multicultural students has surpassed 190,000, the highest ever recorded. The dropout rate at education universities, which had been maintaining around 1% in the past 4-5 years, has reached the 4% range for the first time in history.
The Ministry of Education reported that this year, the total number of elementary, middle, and high school students decreased by 98,867 (1.7%) compared to the previous year, reaching 5,684,745 students. This is a decrease of 1,301,371 students compared to 2014 when there were 6,986,116 students. The number of students in elementary, middle, and high schools hit a peak of 10.04 million in 1980 before starting to decline in the 1990s. The numbers dropped to the 9.96 million range in the 1990s, 8.54 million in the 2000s, and further down to the 7.82 million range in the 2010s. In 2021, the number fell below the 6 million mark.
By school level, the number of kindergarten students decreased by 4.4% to 498,604, elementary students decreased by 4.2% to 2,495,005, while middle school students increased by 0.5% to 1,332,850, and high school students increased by 2.0% to 1,304,325.
Looking at the number of schools, the total number of elementary, middle, and high schools nationwide decreased by 125 to 24,480 compared to the previous year. Kindergartens, facing the impact of declining school-age population, decreased by 147 in a year. On the other hand, due to factors such as the development of new cities, elementary schools increased by 8, middle schools by 7, high schools by 1. Other schools such as special schools and vocational high schools increased by 6 to a total of 351 schools. Consequently, the number of students per class decreased by 0.4 to 15.7 students in kindergartens, by 0.7 to 20.0 students in elementary schools, and by 0.1 to 24.5 students in middle schools. In contrast, the number of students per class in high schools increased by 0.5 to 23.4 students.
In terms of provinces and cities, except for Sejong City, most regions experienced a decrease in the overall number of students compared to the previous year. Sejong City saw a 5.6% and 1.5% decrease in kindergarten and elementary students, respectively, while middle school students increased by 1.7% and high school students by 10.7%. Among the regions with the largest decrease in student numbers, Jeonbuk saw 7.8% and 5.8% decreases in kindergarten and elementary students, respectively, while Seoul saw a 1.5% decrease in middle school students, and Gangwon saw a 0.4% decrease in high school students.
The number of multicultural students in elementary and middle schools, including various schools, reached a record high of 193,814 students, an increase of 7.0% from the previous year. The ratio of multicultural students to the total students increased by 0.3 percentage points to 3.8%, compared to 3.5% in the previous year. Vietnam had the highest proportion of multicultural students by parental nationality, accounting for 31.6% (61,333 students).
The total number of elementary, middle, and high school teachers in South Korea increased by 392 to 509,242 compared to the previous year. The number of kindergarten teachers decreased by 233 to 55,404, while the numbers for middle and high school teachers decreased by 20 and 1,174 to 114,780 and 129,436, respectively. The number of elementary school teachers increased by 1,511 to 196,598.
In higher education, the total number of institutions decreased by 2 to 422, with 189 general universities, 10 educational universities, 131 specialized universities, 48 industrial and technical universities, and 44 graduate universities. One general university (Korea International University) and two specialized universities (Kangwon Tourism University and Seoulvel University) closed down compared to the previous year.
Although the number of students in higher education decreased, the overall admission rate of institutions increased to 86.2% from 85.3% the previous year. General universities and specialized universities increased to 98.0% and 90.1%, respectively, up by 0.7% and 1.1% compared to the previous year.
In terms of dropout rates, the dropout rate for elementary, middle, and high school students remained the same at 1.0%, but the rate increased to 7.4% for universities, 0.2% higher than the previous year. Education universities saw an increase to 4.2%, a 1% increase compared to the previous year.