Students arrive at an elementary school in Seoul on Nov. 25, 2022. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Dec. 20 (Korea Bizwire) — One in four students in South Korea have no future job preference, a survey showed Monday.
The Ministry of Education and the Korea Research Institute for Vocational Education and Training conducted a nationwide survey of 22,702 elementary, middle and high school students, among which 19.3 percent of elementary school students, 38.2 percent of middle school students and 27.2 percent of high school students had no “dream job.”
Compared to last year, the percentage was 1.6 percentage points lower for elementary school students, but 1.4 percentage points higher for middle schoolers and 3.5 percentage points higher for high school students.
At 52.5 percent, more than half of middle schoolers and 47.7 percent of high schoolers had no ‘dream job’ primarily because they were unsure of what kind of job they would like.
Among elementary school students, 39.2 percent had no dream job because they thought they had yet to find out about their strengths and weaknesses, while 37.8 percent said they didn’t know what they liked.
Roughly one quarter of middle schoolers and high schoolers talked with their parents about their career interests once a week, while 30 percent of elementary schoolers talked about career interests less than once every two months.
Among elementary schoolers, the most popular dream job was athlete, which has topped the charts since 2019, while middle and high schoolers were most interested in becoming teachers, the same as last year.
H. M. Kang (hmkang@koreabizwire.com)
