Going forward, teaching school subjects such as English and math to children ages 0–2 will be banned. For children age 3 and older, only up to three hours a day of rote instruction will be allowed. The government has begun full-fledged regulation targeting so-called "English kindergartens" and the "age 4 and age 7 exams."
The Ministry of Education said on the 1st that it will push to revise the Private Teaching Institutes Act (Act on the Establishment and Operation of Private Teaching Institutes and Extracurricular Lessons) with these measures through the "response plan for private education for infants and toddlers to protect children's developmental rights."
Harmful instructional practices at infant and toddler institutes that the government defines as "illegal" are: ▲ comparison and ranking ▲ cognitive instruction for children under age 3 ▲ long hours of cognitive instruction (more than three hours a day or more than 15 hours a week) for children age 3 and older up to school entry.
Comparison and ranking refers to comparing academic achievement and assigning ranks. For example, having students take a vocabulary test at an English kindergarten and notifying the child or parents of the results falls under this.
Cognitive instruction means rote instruction aimed at acquiring knowledge focused on school subjects (letters, language, numeracy). The Ministry of Education said, "Writing 'A is Apple' on the blackboard and having children repeat it 10 times, making them complete a set amount of workbook exercises like alphabet writing every day, showing number cards and having them memorize from 1 to 100 in order, and making them repeat if they make a mistake are examples."
However, play-based education is not included. For instance, naturally learning number concepts during water play or sand play is classified as play-based education. Because the criteria for determining whether something is "cognitive instruction" are still unclear, the Ministry of Education plans to distribute a guideline or casebook containing practical evaluation indicators later. The Ministry of Education also plans to ban exaggerated or false advertising by infant and toddler institutes.
The Ministry of Education plans to push a measure to impose a penalty surcharge of up to 50% of sales for violations of these matters. It also plans to raise fines from the current maximum of 3 million won to 10 million won. To cultivate so-called "hak-parazzi" who report illegal private education, it will also raise the reporting reward to a maximum of 2 million won.
Kang Min-gyu, director general for infant and toddler policy at the Ministry of Education, said, "This measure is a very strong step that legally bans improper instructional practices at infant and toddler institutes," adding, "In particular, it means do not provide advanced learning to children under age 3. For English kindergartens, it will become difficult to operate all-day classes."
The Ministry of Education aims to prepare a revision bill to the Private Teaching Institutes Act with these details and pass it at a plenary session of the National Assembly within the year. Considering that education-related laws usually take effect six months after promulgation, the revised bill is expected to take effect as early as the second half of next year.