The area with the most students who dropped out of general high school in Seoul is referred to as the 'Gangnam 3 districts,' which includes Gangnam District, Seocho District, and Songpa District.
According to the Korean Educational Development Institute (KEDI) statistics on dropout rates by administrative district from the 10th, the three areas with the highest dropout rates for general high schools in Seoul last year were Gangnam District, Seocho District, and Songpa District.
The dropout rate refers to the percentage of students who leave school. Gangnam District and Seocho District had rates of 2.7%, followed by Songpa District at 2.1%. Assuming there are 300 students in a high school grade, an average of 6 to 8 students are dropping out.
The dropout rates for general high school students in these areas have shown a continuous increasing trend recently. In 2021, Gangnam District's dropout rate was 1.4%, which increased to 1.9% in 2022, and reached 2.2% in 2023, ultimately rising to 2.7% last year. Seocho District also increased from 1.3% in 2021 to 2.4% in 2022 but saw a decrease to 1.8% in 2023 before rising again last year.
In the case of Songpa District, both 2021 (1.0%) and 2022 (1.6%) were in the 1% range. After that, the district recorded 2% for the second consecutive year, reaching 2.1% in 2022 and maintaining it last year.
The primary reason for students in the Gangnam 3 districts to drop out of general high schools is analyzed to be the pressure they feel regarding their academic performance.
They believe that if they perform poorly on midterm or final exams, it will be difficult to recover. Subsequently, they focus only on the College Scholastic Ability Test. This year, among the new students at Seoul National University, Korea University, and Yonsei University, 259 are from ged programs, an increase of 37% (70 students) compared to last year. This is the highest in the last eight years.