Number of new elementary students in Korea expected to hit another record low next year

A school in Korea. (ClipartKorea)

Korea is expected to see fewer than 300,000 children enter elementary school next year for the first time on record, just three years after the number fell below 400,000 in 2024. While the decline was foreseeable given the country’s entrenched low birth rate, experts are calling for proactive measures to address the broader changes it will bring to Korean society.

A comprehensive analysis of data from the Korea Statistical Information Service and the Korea Educational Development Institute’s education statistics released on Sunday showed the number of children born in 2020 eligible to enter elementary school next year to be 272,337, down 10% from 302,676 in 2019.

Birth figures and the number of children entering school do not correspond exactly, partly because of factors such as families living abroad, but the number of incoming students is lower than the number of births. This indicates a high probability that next year’s entering class will break yet another all-time low in the 200,000 range.

The number of elementary school entrants was around 900,000 in 1964, when such data was first recorded, and hit an all-time high of 1,055,632 four years later. The figure has since steadily declined to the 800,000 range in 1982, the 700,000 range in 1983, the 600,000 range in 1991, the 500,000 range in 2008 and the 400,000 range in 2009.

Remaining largely in the 400,000 range until 2023, the number dropped to 353,828 in 2024, the first time that it sank to the 300,000 range. If it drops to the 200,000 level next year, it will be just one-quarter of its peak level 59 years ago.

The number of elementary school entrants is projected to keep falling to the low 200,000s by 2030, when the 230,028 children born in 2023 are set to start school. The total fertility rate has rebounded since 2024, but the annual number of births remains in the 200,000 range; as such, the number of entrants is expected to stay at this level for the time being.

Given the sweeping societal changes bound to follow, experts say solutions must go well beyond approaches taken in the past.

“Back when elementary schools had a million entrants, the country could afford to focus on developing the top 200,000 high-achieving elite students,” said Jeon Young-soo, a professor of sustainable economy at Hanyang University’s Graduate School of International Studies. “In today’s era, however, every single one of the roughly 200,000 new students is a vital resource.”

“An education system that perpetuates past practices by ranking students according to grades and focusing on excessive competition serves no meaningful purpose,” he added. “We must break free from the illusion surrounding university admissions and instead prepare to develop each and every student into a highly capable human resource.”

“The problem is that the decline in the school-age population is occurring so fast that it leaves little time to adjust the mismatch between schools and teachers on one hand and students on the other,” said Lee Chul-hee, a professor of economics who heads the Population Cluster of Seoul National University’s Institute for Future Strategies. “Sustaining schools will get increasingly difficult as more of them face closure or become micro-schools of fewer than 30 students.”

Deteriorating conditions for attending school outside the Seoul metropolitan region could also create a vicious cycle of driving households with school-age children to relocate to the capital area. This could further cut student numbers in those regions and intensify pressure to consolidate or close schools.

“If low student numbers mean that the nearest available schools are too far away, we must consider alternative approaches to ensure the quality of education, like connecting families who choose homeschooling with an educational hub institution,” said Lee. 

For the overall economy, a shrinking workforce poses a high risk of lowering the potential growth rate.

To tackle this problem, the government is pursuing legislative amendments to abolish the 55-year-old system of linking education finance grants to national tax revenue. The aim is to reallocate the funds freed up by the revisions to early childhood and higher education and lifelong learning.