KDI - Korea Development Institute - RESEARCH - Research Areas

Summary

Research Monograph KOR Education Innovation and Human Capital Development

The Korean economy and society confront a multitude of challenges, including demographic shifts, slowing growth potential, and declining social mobility. These changes, coupled with the transition into the digital economy and the development of new technologies such as AI are expected to bring about various changes in labor demand. These developments demand a swift transformation of the education system to foster human resources capable of adapting to these changes. However, Korea's education system, the foundation of its workforce, is not yet prepared, making it essential to transform all levels of education, from primary to higher education.

Recognizing that nurturing future human resources through educational innovation is a critical task in this era, this study explores innovations in primary and secondary education and reorganization strategies for higher education to create an innovative human capital ecosystem.
Beginning with an introduction outlining the role and direction of education, this paper discusses the need for educational innovation, referencing the social mobility index. We then examine educational inequality based on parental social background and status in the modern Korean society, investigate how the resulting income inequality has become perceived negatively, and analyze intergenerational social mobility using empirical data and various metrics and methods.

For innovation in elementary and secondary education, we suggest establishing a new 'Scholastic Aptitude Test' system, implementing a transition to tiered and customized teaching approaches to increase educational productivity, and developing a teacher training system to prepare for upcoming environmental changes.

Regarding higher education, we assess the performance of cross-applicants in the labor market after graduation, the efficacy of major-specific education in the labor market, and the roles of government and academic institutions in enhancing university competitiveness. Drawing upon these analyses, we present a transformation strategy for higher education to foster an innovative human capital ecosystem.

In conclusion, we highlight the importance of shifting from a supply-focused to a demand-focused educational paradigm and prioritizing the improvement of educational productivity as key elements of the proposed educational innovation.

Summary

KDI Policy Forum Improving Elementary After-school Program for Child Development

■ As the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need to further strengthen education and childcare, this study looks at the correlation between the participation of elementary school students in after-school programs and their child development and then offers recommendations for developmental outcomes among elementary school children through after-school activities.

- After-school programs are educational and caring activities that schools offer for a certain period apart from the regular school curriculum, tailored to the needs of students and parents. Students choose a course from a list of diverse program options, encompassing school subjects and special talent and aptitude programs.

■ The analysis finds no consistent correlation between participation in after-school activities and the development of elementary school students.

- As for the after-school program, less than one hour of participation led to better health status assessments, and for two to three hours, there were improvements in academic vigor, grit, and body mass index (BMI) but decreased aggressiveness, depression, and peer relationship. In contrast, physical symptoms worsened when participating for two or more hours.

- Such results may be attributed to the differences between the programs, such as varying content composition depending on operating hours, teaching methods, and instructor characteristics.

■ For after-school programs to shore up student competencies, they should share student guidance information with regular classes, form a close link with the regular curriculum, and provide sufficient care backed by positive interactions.

- Provided that student information such as interests, experiences, developmental characteristics, learning history, etc., is exchanged between elementary school courses and after-school programs, the extracurricular activities may provide in-depth stimulation for learning based on the data.

- Affectionate and nurturing care is a prerequisite to bringing out students' potential.

■ It is necessary to expand the instructor pool competent in achieving the well-rounded development of children, widen the scope of after-school program providers to local communities, and have local governments take a managing role over the programs for efficient and effective management.

- In addition to providing compulsory training courses for prospective after-school instructors, the instructor selection process should adopt multi-faceted personality interviews to find out candidates' responses about a given classroom situation for a comprehensive assessment.

- Local governments should play a managing role in planning, promoting, and overseeing after-school activities in the region, including after-school programs at schools. Meanwhile, schools should actively engage and cooperate within this framework by informing after-school program registration details and providing a venue.

Summary

Policy Study KOR Improving Elementary Education to Build Social Capital: Focusing on Afterschool Program

The COVID-19 pandemic outbreak has prompted the spread of the notion that schools should strengthen students' physical and social-emotional skills development by providing reliable care, on top of improving their academic achievement. Against this backdrop, this study aims to analyze how afterschool programs, the education and childcare activities schools offer, are related to child development in elementary schools and offer policy recommendations for improving program effectiveness. Afterschool class refers to education and childcare activities at school after regular school hours, tailored to the needs of students and parents. This study focuses on the correlation between child development of elementary school students and afterschool programs and how to improve program effectiveness, considering the following: throughout the school years, it is at the elementary school level afterschool classes are most widely used, and these classes at younger years stimulate early child development, which serves as a foundation for later development.

To analyze the relationship between afterschool program participation and developmental outcomes among elementary school children, the author uses data from the first and second year of the 2018 Korean Children and Youth Panel Survey, which tracks fourth-graders in 2018 until their first year of high school in 2025 on a yearly basis. The status of child development was measured based on their satisfaction with school transcripts, factors of cognitive development stimulation, and the levels of social-emotional and physical development. Cognitive development stimulating factors are about academic enthusiasm consisting of dedication, vigor, efficacy, and immersion. Social-emotional development comprises emotional issues, life satisfaction, happiness, self-esteem, cooperative consciousness, grit, and peer relationship. Physical development consists of health status assessment and body mass index (BMI). As a yardstick to measure child development, the criteria mentioned above embody the educational goal of helping students lead a fulfilling life by pursuing learning focused on strengths and interests and communicating and cooperating with others in a healthy way. Since afterschool classes and private education intend to develop talents and aptitudes and supplement the regular curriculum, the empirical analysis compares participation in afterschool classes to private education relative to child developmental outcomes of elementary school students.

According to the analysis, child development has no consistent relationship with their participation in afterschool programs but a positive one with participation in private education. Elementary school students participating in afterschool activities for less than one hour show better health status assessments. Children who attend for two to three hours display improvement in academic vigor, grit, and BMI, and on the other hand, deterioration in aggressiveness, depression, and peer relationship. Physical symptoms worsen when participating two or more hours. As for private education, participating for one to two hours exhibits boosted grit, while one or more hours shows better academic efficacy and lesser aggressiveness. Also, two or more hours in private education display enhanced satisfaction with academic transcript, and three or more hours improved academic enthusiasm, commitment, vigor, immersion, attention, cooperative consciousness, peer relationship, and health status assessment. The different structures of afterschool programs children choose depending on the mix of afterschool and private education they are taking or the differences in educators' teaching methods and characteristics between the two may have caused these results.

Given the objectives of afterschool classes, such as holistic development of children, supplementing the compulsory school curriculum, and reducing private education expenses, it may be necessary to improve the quality of afterschool programs.

For afterschool classes to further develop children's cognitive skills, programs need to be linked with formal education and exchange information on the regular school curriculum and student guidance. Sharing student information such as interests, experiences, developmental characteristics, and learning history may enable afterschool classes to construct programs to reinforce academic enthusiasm in students. To put it differently, in regular classes, students efficiently acquire the accumulated academic knowledge and systems. In afterschool classes, they experience real-world applications of regular classroom learning, ultimately inspiring intrinsic motivation to learn, the foundation of self-directed and lifelong learning capacities. Also, during and after the regular school hours, educators need to work together to help the latter, afterschool instructors, better understand the mandatory curriculum.

Furthermore, for deepening children's social-emotional skills, afterschool instructors must provide adequate care coupled with positive interactions. Elementary school students need a positive and supportive role model and a leader who recognizes, encourages, and reinforces their prosocial behaviors. Thus, educators should help students learn how to collaborate, compromise, and reach agreements with others in specific situations. A warm and caring learning environment is a prerequisite for success in drawing out students' potential. While physical activities can simultaneously promote both physical and social-emotional development, afterschool programs can create educational settings conducive to affectionate and nurturing learning for children.

One way to enhance the educational effectiveness of afterschool classes is to provide compulsory training courses for prospective instructors and, from those who completed them, select instructors suitable for helping the well-rounded development of children. This training should include required courses on theoretical and practical aspects of child development by age, teaching methods, communication and relation buildup between educators, student guidance, etc. Through multi-faceted personality interviews on topics like how to respond to a given classroom situation, the selection process should comprehensively assess applicants as dedicated educators. To sum up, it is important to raise the bar for training and selecting instructors but leave operation at the discretion of each school in order to provide student-oriented and customized education.

In addition, it is necessary to broaden the scope of program providers from schools to local communities, and local governments should holistically manage the program to enhance its system and effectiveness. Now, students are offered the same programs even after advancing to the next grade, and a change of instructor means discontinuing the previous program. Limited material and human resources are also obstacles to providing students with various enriching experiences in culture, art, and career. School teachers complain of time constraints to focus on the regular curriculum because it takes too much time to process administrative matters for afterschool classes, including bookkeeping, parental opinion gathering, and instructor selection. For quality afterschool programs, local governments, schools, and offices of education all have parts to play. Local governments should establish an integrated framework in which they play a managing role in planning, promoting, and supervising afterschool classes at schools as well as afterschool activities at libraries, community centers, universities, and welfare centers in the vicinity. Schools should actively engage and cooperate within the framework by informing afterschool program registration details and providing a venue. It is desirable that local governments train, manage, deploy, evaluate, and remunerate instructors, run the programs, and link community resources and education offices to play a leading role in selecting instructors and developing educational items and content compositions.

Especially, schools should operate basic-level afterschool programs and develop them for advanced-level classes before sharing with local communities while managing students' developmental characteristics and learning history under a unified system. In this way, afterschool classes can provide systematic and in-depth learning, differentiating itself from private education. For instance, a professional visits a class and conducts career education, and then students go on a workplace tour in the area to observe the work or have hands-on experience. Also, it is necessary to encourage community members with a certain level of professional expertise to be trained at lifelong education centers and work as afterschool instructors using flexible working hours. Such practices of raising all children as our own are helpful to increasing social capital.

Finally, the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the weaknesses of the Korean education and care system. Remaking afterschool programs in line with the findings of this study would improve the academic performance of elementary school students and broaden their social-emotional support base, contributing to mitigating the vulnerabilities.

Summary

KDI FOCUS Improving Elementary Childcare System in Women’s Growing Economic Participation

□ Despite women's growing economic participation, female employment rates vary considerably across age groups. Women in their 30~40s exhibit the lowest rates, mainly due to the lack of policy support targeting women with dependent children in elementary school. The Korean government has sought to address this by expanding public childcare, but problems like childcare void and high dependence on private education persist. Amid rising social demands for childcare services, taking policy actions to enhance the quality and quantity of public childcare and overhaul its legal framework is of vital importance and requires immediate attention.

- By design, Korean childcare support policy mainly targets younger children, and the relative shortage of elementary childcare services is a hurdle to economic activity for women with dependent children in elementary school.

- Policy efforts for better elementary childcare services are vital to properly respond to women’s growing economic participation

- As elementary childcare classes focus on caring and after-school programs on learning, educational benefits among students differ.

- So far, Korea has no clear policy direction for childcare and a fragile legal foundation for elementary childcare services.

- It is important to figure out why participation in private education rapidly rises after 3 p.m. while it is low in elementary childcare classes.

- Suppose short regular school hours are extended to equip better schools as care providers and induce students to sue public childcare after dismissal. In addition to solving the lack of childcare, it may be possible to reduce dependence on private education with additional educational opportunities.

- If the discussion on increasing regular class hours is to focus on resolving the childcare gap, there should be an in-depth analysis of the use of after-school hours.

- Childcare policies in major countries have progressed in the direction of incorporating learning from supporting child's wellbeing.

- Korea’s care policy needs a proper legal basis and social consensus among stakeholders.

- When children attend elementary childcare classes, mothers are 7.8%p more likely to participate in economic activity and work for extra 4.7 hours per week on average, while they are 8.5%p less likely to use private education.

- On the other hand, among the users of afterschool programs, no statistically significant effects were observed in terms of women’s economic participation, working hours, and the use of private institutes.

- Extended hours of the regular curriculum may not deter the use of private institutes.

- In order to achieve the intended effect of longer regular school hours, authorities need to take policy actions for a significant quality upgrade of school childcare services.

- The function of care services needs to be redefined by establishing a legal basis for operating elementary childcare classes and after-school programs within the Framework Act on Education and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

- Elementary childare services need to stay open for longer hours and more applicants.

- Elementary childcare services need a quality upgrade.

- The approach of strengthening the childcare function of schools by increasing the regular school hours needs to be considered in connection with the current care policy.

Summary

KDI Policy Forum Transition from a Two-Parent to a Single-Parent Household and Child Development

■ As Korea is expected to see an increase in the share of single-parent families, this study analyzes the impact of a family transition from a two-parent to single-parent home on child development.

- The level of development is measured based on health, self-regulated learning, emotional disorders, selfperception, life satisfaction, peer attachment, school adjustment, sense of community, and multicultural acceptance.

■ According to the analysis, children who have experienced a transition have difficulties in academic time management but see improvements in their attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorders. However, the impact on other development criteria cannot be confirmed.

- The ability to manage academic time dropped 8.5% while the level of attention and attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorders improved 14.4%, compared to the averages.

- These results are possibly due to the fact that the children are able to have a positive relationship with the primary caregiver after the transition as they are no longer caught in the middle of the parental conflict.

■ This finding indicates that contrary to the conventional belief, transitions can also positively influence child development, and thus, policy intervention is needed to alleviate the negative effects on learning ability.

■ Housework support programs should be expanded to enable single parents to spend sufficient time parenting and, if necessary, receive help in better understanding their parental role. Also, schools should lead efforts to improve nurturing and learning environments by serving as a key link between families and local community.

- Single parents burdened with household chores cannot invest enough time to establish relationships with their children or gain information about nurturing and education. Programs for such services should stretch to reach single parents struggling with labor, study, disease, and disability.

- Parent education programs that are specifically customized to fit the needs of single parents should be included in housework support programs if needed to resolve grievances in a timely manner.

- Teachers should serve as a learning coach and emotional support for the children, and counsellor for the parents while closely monitoring the children's learning stages and family conditions that can affect academic performance.

- To alleviate the academic difficulties of students, schools should encourage teacher cooperation, promote parent-teacher partnerships, and reinforce parents' capability to provide academic support. They should also take the lead in adopting and driving family support services when a child is in need of help that exceeds the capabilities of the school.

Summary

Policy Study KOR Family Types and Human Capital Formation in Childhood

Single-parent families are on the rise in Korea, and the figure is expected to increase as society becomes more accepting of different family structures. However, despite the sincere efforts made by the government, local authorities, and civic groups to combat discriminatory practices and negative perceptions, the notion that dual parenting is superior prevails, and as a result, a large number of children from single-parent homes are being discriminated against. Accordingly, empirical evidence is needed to prove that children can grow up healthy in either family situations, and if discrepancies are found in their development, policy efforts should be made to narrow the gap.

Thus, using data on 4th grade elementary students from the 2010-2017 Korean Children and Youth Panel Survey, this study analyzes the impact of a transition from a two- to single-parent home on children’s development, and explores policy measures to mitigate the negative effects. For the empirical analysis, single- and two-parent families who have similar propensity scores in terms of becoming a single-parent home were matched based on observable characteristics, and a fixed effect difference-in-differences model was used to control the unobservable time-invariant characteristics.

The results reveal that the transition is not entirely negative, and can even serve as a positive shift. It was found that it does not damage the children’s health, study habits, emotions, self-awareness, satisfaction level, peer attachments, adjustment to school, sense of community, or acceptance of multiculturalism, among others. One noticeable change observed is that children’s attentiveness and concentration improved by a statistically significant 5% while their capacity to manage their school schedules weakened. With a statistical significance of up to 10%, there was a decline in the children’s sense of achievement and participation in school activities but an improvement in social withdrawal. This is assumed to be because removing the parent who has the negative impact eases the children’s anxieties, and the caregiving parent feels a stronger sense of responsibility about their children’s development.

To improve management of school schedules, sense of achievement, and participation in school activities, it is important to strengthen children’s self-control. This depends on how well the caregiver can bolster the children's autonomy, competence, and relationships. Self-control can only be improved if the caregiver is given sufficient time to serve in his/her parental role as well as specific support, if necessary, to help them better understand their part. Single parents have to serve multiple roles as the homemaker, child-rearer, and breadwinner, so it is often the case that they face challenges in obtaining essential information on child rearing, and their children are inevitably forced to be alone. As such, alleviating the burden of housework could give them more hours to devote to caregiving. Currently, the Seoul Single-Parent Family Support Center provides housekeeping services for single parents who have difficulties due to work, study, illness, or disability. These services should to be expanded and a face-to-face and/or remote program on parent education should be designed to fit the needs and available hours of single parents who use these services.

Moreover, to ease difficulties at school, teachers need to play various roles such as academic coach, emotional supporter, parental counselor, and a bridge to community resources. To this end, their duties should be further specified to cover diverse areas including developing educational content, designing class projects, delivering online lectures and face-to-face classes, providing emotional support, executing customized educational programs, conducting in-depth parental counseling, and making connections with available resources. As an emotional supporter, teachers should be able to build a positive trusting relationship with students through face-to-face classes, and also bond with both parent and child through continued monitoring and evaluation of the children’s school life and academic performance. If determined necessary, teachers can serve as a link to education facilitators who provide customized education or to in-depth counsellors and relevant organizations that can connect parents to available resources in the community. Tailored education should be provided in consideration of the student’s academic goals and interests, strengths in and necessary support for learning, necessary assistance for social, emotional and physical development, and areas that require cooperation from caregivers. For teachers to seamlessly perform their role, it is important that they establish a bond through personal interaction with the caregivers. While paying constant attention to the educational needs of single parents, teachers could help in counseling and guiding family-support programs or courses. In addition, through home visits, teachers could ascertain the negative aspects in terms of the children’s schooling, such as home environment, household income, health, and family reorganization, and they could connect them to local organizations that can provide relevant support.

This study discusses the fact that children from single-parent families do not experience difficulties in every aspect of their development, and that the lack of academic skills observed among these children can be resolved by creating an institutional environment that can provide not only emotional support from the parents but also cooperation between parents, schools, and the community. It is hoped that this study can contribute to improving perspectives on single-parent families.

Summary

KDI FOCUS Mismatches in the Labor Market for College Graduates: Focusing on Field-of-Study Choice

□ The intense major-occupation mismatch is attributed to difficulties in adjusting admission quotas within universities, insufficient labor-market information at the department level, and uniform timing of decisions on college majors. To cope with the rapidly changing technological and industrial landscapes, efforts are needed to make meaningful improvements in quota regulation, career education, and university-level curricula.

- The accelerating pace of progress in technology and industry has highlighted the need for change.

- The mismatch between occupation and major in Korea nears 50%, the highest among the surveyed OECD members.

- Total student quotas for universities in the capital-region serve as a significant constraint on the adjustment of quotas for respective majors.

- The gap in income and stability resulting from student quotas for special majors has incurred a herd behavior towards certain majors.

- The expected income of freshmen from four-year universities is similar to the actual average income of graduates, but this masks heterogeneity across college majors.

- Many students struggle with regret over their forced decision between liberal arts and natural sciences in high school and their major in university.

- A partial lift of the enrollment control is needed for capitalregion universities while regular reexaminations are conducted of the appropriateness of student quotas for special majors.

- To reinforce career education, a semester dedicated to careers is needed on a more substantial scale. In addition, more teachers should be assigned, and information on the performance of the labor market at a department level should be provided.

- Policies concerning the timing of college major choices must give proper consideration to both students who decide on their career path early and those who remain undecided.

- Under the principle of autonomy, more encouragement is needed to broaden college major choices.

Summary

Policy Study KOR A Study on the Effectiveness of Care Services in Elementary Schools and Efficient Policy Measures: Focusing on the Seoul Case

This study discusses Korea’s elementary care service which provides a variety of care services to elementary school students needing care to reduce the burden of parenting. In 2017, the government established a policy that bolsters the care infrastructure to expand elementary care, community-linked and “village care” classrooms. However, the policy lacks detailed discussions on the shortfalls and measures to expand. In this regard, this study focuses on preparing effective policy plans based on an analysis of the impact of care services on women's economic activities, and on the effects of private education. In particular, in order to see the effects of the increase in regular class hours, which was recently discussed, this study is of great significance in the analysis on the effects of the increased regular class hours on decisions about after school hours.

In summary, the use of elementary care classrooms is found to contribute to the increase in women’s working hours, and it is most effective for working couples. In terms of private education, the use of elementary care and after school classrooms have been shown to affect the cost of private education, and care services play a part in reducing the burden of raising children. Finally, prolonged school hours have resulted in parents becoming more inclined to choose private academies than care services, suggesting that there may be unforeseen effects due to the increase in regular class hours.

Based on the results of the above, the implications for the effective operation of the elementary care policy are as follows. Targets should be expanded by easing the eligibility for primary care classes, and care services for non-semester hours. In addition, the quality of care services should be improved; the appropriate number of care teachers must be secured and; care classes should be integrated in the mid- to long-term. Finally, a discussion is presented on the integrated cooperation of line ministries.

Summary

Research Monograph KOR A Study on College Regulation and Private Tutoring

This study summarizes the previous discussions on private tutoring, tries to complement the gap in the literature, and suggests a new policy direction.

Following the introduction in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 summarizes the previous discussions on private tutoring. According to the previous studies comparing participation and time spent on private tutoring of students across countries and the analysis of this study, it is clear that hours spent on private tutoring of Korean students tend to be much longer than that of other countries and that, in contrast to most other countries, students with higher academic achievement are more likely to receive private tutoring in Korea. On the other hand, many studies estimating the causal effects of private tutoring investment report a limited effect on improving academic achievement, but a significant impact on the probability of admission to a top university. These results jointly suggest that private tutoring investment in Korea can be regarded socially wasteful in that it only has a significant impact on the ranking competition for college admission, while it does not contribute much to the absolute level of academic achievement of students. As a policy tool to alleviate the costly private tutoring competition, it has often been argued that the government should focus on improving the quality of school education. However, the demand for private tutoring resulting from the ranking competition for college admission may not decrease even if the quality of school education improves. The chapter shows that private tutoring investment did not decrease, but increased, even though the school satisfaction of students improved due to attending a high-quality school.

There is also a view that governmental regulation on college enrollment and tuition intensifies competition for college admission among students, leading to larger investment in private tutoring. Higher education services are supplied by universities and demanded by students at the price level of tuition and at the quantity level of enrollment. Traditionally, the Korean government has strictly regulated the price and quantity of university education, tuition fees and enrollment. In particular, in the Seoul area where most of the prestigious universities in Korea are concentrated, the enrollment of universities has been strictly prohibited since the 1980s. Economically, when prices and quantities are below the equilibrium level, demand exceeds supply and unnecessary competition occurs between consumers. It is possible that the government regulation has prevented universities, particularly very prestigious ones, from increasing their enrollment sufficiently, resulting in increased competition among students.

In order to empirically test the hypothesis that regulation on enrollment and tuition intensifies private tutoring competition among students, there is a need for significant changes in such regulations. Fortunately, around 1995, there has been a significant deregulation on enrollment limit of university, but only in non-capital regions. Exploiting this over-time and cross-region variation in the intensity of regulation as natural experiment, the chapter examines how the deregulation around 1995 affected the likelihood of receiving private tutoring of high school students. Using the data on 4,614 people who graduated high schools over the period of 1982-2005 observed from Education and Social Mobility Survey by the Korea Education Development Institute, this study found that the 1995 deregulation on college enrollment decreased the likelihood of receiving private tutoring of high school students by 9 to 10 percentage points, which amounts to about 1/3 of the sample mean of the outcome variable. In addition, using the deregulation as an instrumental variable for the college admission competition rate in each region, a unit increase in the competition rate was estimated to increase the likelihood of receiving private tutoring in the region by about 5-6 percentage points. In the sample used for the analysis, the average college admission competition rate is about 4:1, so the estimation result suggests that when the competition rate increases from 4:1 to 5:1, the likelihood of receiving private tutoring of high school students tend to increase from 32 percent to 37-38 percent. In order to examine whether the above estimation results indicate a causal effect due to deregulation or merely a correlation, this study also attempted two falsification tests and found evidence supporting the causal interpretation.

The estimation results in Chapter 3 are from analyzing the effects of policy changes in the mid-1990s, and therefore, it is difficult to directly link the results to policy suggestions that are appropriate at this time. In this regard, Chapter 4 examines whether the current level of regulation on enrollment and tuition still causes undersupply of the amount of admissions supplied by university, likely leading to increase in private tutoring investment among students. Specifically, this study theoretically discusses the possibility that universities may try to avoid the regulation by admitting international students who are not subject to the regulation, and empirically examines the plausibility of the theoretical prediction. Analysis of the financial situation and student information of four-year private universities nationwide during 2008-2017 revealed that private universities in Seoul, whose enrollment and tuition are strictly regulated by the government, tend to increase the share of international students when the financial situation deteriorates. On the other hand, for private universities outside the Seoul area where the regulation tends to be less strict, the correlation between the financial situation and the share of international students was not observed. These results support the interpretation that the current level of regulation on enrollment and tuition is binding enough to curb the voluntary admission supply by universities in Korea, thus likely intensifying the competition for admission among Korean students.

Chapter 5 concludes the report and sets out policy directions. It is neither desirable nor possible for the government to curb all private tutoring investments. Rather, the government should focus on identifying and correcting the causes of “rent-seeking” private tutoring. Rent-seeking behavior is motivated by economic rent, and economic rent is formed when supply is limited. The rent-seeking private tutoring, the objective of which is to occupy limited college admission opportunities rather than improving academic achievement or human capital formation of students, occurs because of the limited supply of college admissions, especially those of very prestigious colleges. In this respect, the government should induce colleges, particularly prestigious ones, to increase their enrollment sufficiently.

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