Education Reform? The Answer is in the Market

Education is often described as the “hundred-year plan of the nation.” It is also said that one can glimpse a country’s future by looking at the state of its education system. This reflects just how crucial education is to a nation’s long-term prospects. Indeed, the world widely acknowledges that South Korea’s extraordinary economic success—often referred to as the “Miracle on the Han River”—owes much to the country’s exceptional passion for education. Yet warning signals have been flashing over Korean education for quite some time now. A succession of education policy “experiments,” announced and implemented almost daily over the years, has only deepened confusion and compounded unintended consequences.

From the outset of its term, the current administration also identified the need for “education reform” as one of its key reform agendas. However, beyond declarations, it has yet to clearly articulate where that reform is headed or what concrete policies it entails, even though the first half of the term has already passed. Recently, the government announced—perhaps fortunately—that it would devote its full energies in the latter half of the term to major reform tasks, including education reform. One can only hope that this time will be different. By “different,” one means not only moving beyond rhetoric to real action, but also ensuring that the direction of policy truly merits the name “reform.” Of these two, the latter—the direction of policy—is in fact more important than action itself. If the direction is misguided, it would be better not to move at all.

As is well known, the most serious problem facing Korean education today is the deterioration of public education. Schools have ceased to be places where students genuinely learn and are taught; instead, they have become places one attends merely because one is told to go—places to pass time, to rest, or even to sleep. Teaching and learning have largely been outsourced to private tutoring institutions. According to a joint survey by the Ministry of Education and Statistics Korea, total private education spending for elementary, middle, and high school students reached approximately 27.1 trillion won in 2023, with a participation rate of 78.5 percent. In other words, the vast majority of students rely on private education for their studies. People often say that “dragons no longer rise from small streams,” and one reason lies here: children from families unable to afford private education inevitably face disadvantages.

This problem has been pointed out repeatedly, and everyone agrees that “reviving public education” is an urgent task. Yet whenever policies are proposed under that banner, they invariably head in the direction of “killing private education.” This approach is not unique to education; it appears in many other policy areas as well. For example, under the slogan of “revitalizing traditional markets,” large supermarkets and shopping malls are regulated. In short, a scapegoat is chosen, and all causes, responsibility, and attention are diverted toward it. The outcome is predictable. Just as restricting large retailers has not revived traditional markets, suppressing private education will not revive public education.

The reason private education thrives while public education deteriorates and is shunned is not hard to find. Private education continuously innovates in order to strengthen its competitiveness. Public education, by contrast, rests on entrenched interests and fiercely resists innovation. The reason for these contrasting behaviors is clear. In the private education sector, institutions must constantly strive and innovate to remain competitive and attract the attention and choice of students and parents—the consumers of education. In public education, however, there is little incentive to do so. “Customers” are supplied automatically by the government, there is no competition, and thus no real risk of exit. The decline of public education and the growing indifference of education consumers are therefore only natural outcomes.

Introducing competition among schools and among teachers, and restoring choice to students and parents, is the path to reviving public education and should be the direction of education reform. By introducing competition into school education—just as in private education—schools and teachers can be encouraged to continuously strive and innovate in order to earn the choice of education consumers. Consumer choice and competition are essential features of a market. Education reform, too, can find its answer in the market.

Hyuk-Chul Kwon
Director, Free Market Research Institute

Korean version: https://www.cfe.org/20241113_27015