Changes in Shadow Education Before and After COVID-19 in Korea

Proceedings of The 7th International Conference on Advanced Research in Teaching and Education

Year: 2023

DOI:

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Changes in Shadow Education Before and After COVID-19 in Korea

Prof. Dr. Jae-Bong Yoo

 

 

ABSTRACT: 

As shown in the results of PISA 2018 and TIMSS 2019, Korea maintains the world’s highest academic achievement. This is not necessarily a reflection of the excellence of South Korean public education. Korea has a higher ‘education fever’ than any other country in the world, and as a result, shadow education is prevalent. Korea’s excessive participation in shadow education has led to a number of educational and social problems. These include poor public education and learning gaps according to parents’ SES. The purpose of this study is to examine the changes in shadow education in Korea before and after COVID-19 by primary, middle, and high school levels, and to explore the participation of shadow education according to parents’ economic variables. For this purpose, the trend of shadow education before and after COVID-19 was analyzed based on data from the survey of Korea National Statistical Office, and 4,601 parents were surveyed to confirm the relationship between average monthly income and shadow education before and after COVID-19. The main results are as follows. First, shadow education has been affected by COVID-19, and shadow education expenses and participation rates have plummeted in 2020, and 2021 and 2022 have been soaring since then. In particular, elementary schools were found to have been most affected by COVID-19. Second, the average monthly income of households differed significantly in whether they participated in shadow education, participation time, shadow education expenses, and whether shadow education expenses increased after COVID-19. Measures to reduce elementary school participation in shadow education and various government education policies are required to resolve the problem of the educational gap due to household income. As shadow education in Korea is affected by household income, it is necessary to implement various government education policies to address the issue of educational disparities.

keywords: shadow education, educational disparities, COVID-19