Elementary freshmen pose for photos at a school in Seoul on March 2, 2023, during an entrance ceremony. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Aug. 30 (Korea Bizwire) — The population of kindergarten to high-school students shrank by nearly 100,000 this year from a year earlier, extending its falling streak to the 18th year, the education ministry said Wednesday.
The number of students at the country’s kindergartens and elementary, middle and high schools nationwide amounted to slightly over 5.78 million as of April 1, the education ministry said in its annual student population statistics, released jointly with the Korean Educational Development Institute.
The figure marks a fall of 1.6 percent, or nearly 96,156, from 2022, when the population of students below the higher education level reached nearly 5.88 million.
After peaking at slightly over 10.3 million in 1986, the student population has been on a steady decline to go below the 10 million level in 1990 and the 6 million level in 2021.
Since posting a turnaround increase of 270 students in 2005, the student population has shrunk for the next 18 years until 2023.
The statistics put the kindergarten student population at 521,794, down 5.6 percent from a year ago.
It also put the number of elementary students at 2.6 million and middle-school students at 1.33 million, down 2.3 percent and 1.6 percent from last year, respectively.
The number of high-school students posted a 1.3 percent growth to 1.28 million.
The combined number of kindergartens and elementary, middle and high schools across the nation stood at 20,605, down 91 from 2022.
The average number of students per teacher reached 9.4 for the kindergarten level, 13.3 for elementary schools, 11.6 for middle schools and 9.8 for high schools.
The number of multicultural students, defined as those with at least one parent who is a foreigner, reached 181,178 at elementary to high schools, up 7.4 percent from a year earlier.
Since the number of multicultural students was first incorporated into the statistics in 2012, their population has increased every year.
A total of 3.04 million students were enrolled in higher education institutions, including universities, graduate schools and vocational colleges, down 2.5 percent from last year.
The number of foreign students hit a record high of 181,842, up from 9 percent from the previous year, with Chinese and Vietnamese students representing the lion’s share of 37.4 percent and 23.8 percent, respectively.
(Yonhap)
