A remote class is under way at an elementary school in Seoul on Aug. 26, 2020. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Feb. 23 (Korea Bizwire) — The educational attainment gap between students is widening as schools that offer fewer offline classes are seeing students flock to both ends of the academic bell curve, a study showed Tuesday.
Researchers from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and Yonsei University jointly analyzed the National Assessment of Educational Achievement data of high school sophomores across the country.
According to the results, schools that offered fewer than 100 days of offline classes saw the proportion of mid-range academic achievers in the Korean language course drop by 3.1 percentage points, while the proportion of high-range and low-range achievers jumped by 2.2 and 2.7 percentage points, respectively.
In mathematics, schools that offered fewer than 100 days of offline courses saw the proportion of mid-range achievers drop by 4.1 percentage points, while high and low-range achievers rose by 1.4 and 2.7 percentage points.
In English, mid-range achievers dropped by 4.9 percentage points, while high and low-range achievers rose by 2.2 and 2.7 percentage points.
High-range academic achievers might have seen their grades improve through private education and other alternative means of study, while low-range achievers most likely have given up on their studies as they spent fewer days at school, the research team said.
In 2020, high schoolers went to school for 104 days, falling short of the 190-day requirement set in 2019.
M. H. Lee (mhlee@koreabizwire.com)
