The Ministry of Education said on the 17th that it will establish and operate an Infant and Toddler Private Education Response Team dedicated to the issue of private education for infants and toddlers. As private education targeting infants and toddlers, such as the "age 4 exam" and "age 7 exam," has emerged as a social problem, the ministry formed a related unit to respond.
The Infant and Toddler Private Education Response Team will be created under the Infant and Toddler Policy General Affairs Division of the Bureau of Infant and Toddler Policy. The Ministry of Education plans to operate the response team on a temporary basis for about three months until the end of this year.
The team's main tasks are: ▲ establishing measures to reduce private education for young children and identifying tasks ▲ conducting surveys on private education expenditures for young children and parents' perceptions, and gathering on-site opinions ▲ identifying inspections and institutional improvements related to private education for young children and spreading best practices for reduction.
It has been nine months since the Ministry of Education last set up a separate unit dedicated to responding to private education. Under the Yoon Suk-yeol administration, a Private Education Response Team was established in Apr. 2023, but it was reportedly disbanded around the end of last year.
The decision to reestablish such a unit under the current administration stems from the judgment that private education targeting young children is excessive. According to key results from the 2024 pilot survey on private education expenditures for young children, released in Mar. by the Ministry of Education and Statistics Korea, the aggregates of private education expenditure for 1.721 million young children over the three months from Jul. to Sep. last year was about 815.4 billion won. By age group, the aggregates of private education expenditure were 85.8 billion won for age 2 and under (801,000 children), 132.5 billion won for age 3 (279,000), 245.2 billion won for age 4 (309,000), and 351.9 billion won for age 5 (332,000).
The Ministry of Education, together with 17 metropolitan and provincial offices of education, also conducted a complete survey of 728 English academies for young children nationwide from May to Jul. As a result, 384 violations of laws and regulations were uncovered at 260 facilities.
The Ministry of Education plans to draw up, within the year, a tentatively titled Infant and Toddler Private Education Response Plan that includes measures to curb the overheating of private education for infants and toddlers.