Admission rates for private primary schools in South Korea for the 2022 school year has reached an unprecedented low as the number of prospective precipitously increased, with mean rates ranging around 10% percent — nearly two-thirds of last year’s rate. While public primary schools operate fully on taxpayer money, private schools, with their tuition and various miscellaneous fees, cost approximately ten million Korean Won (KRW) a year. Many affluent parents flock towards such exorbitant options to secure a better-controlled education for their children.

Public education in Korea has long been contested; the country has a history of heavy reliance on private education, with records reaching back to the 1960s. The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic and the subsequent proliferation of online classes, however, is exacerbating the disparity between the two pillars. Many public schools, met with insufficient official regulations, were reduced to poorer quality education with limited real-time classes and the heavy employment of Youtube videos. Private schools, operating on tuition, were pressured into providing better quality interactive classes.

The clash between public and private schools hints at a bigger social phenomenon. As the public’s perception of public education deteriorates, there will be an obvious disparity between those who cannot financially rely on secondary means to better their education and those who can. As the foremost factor behind this discrepancy is familial wealth, it is unavoidable that the objective dilapidation of public education will accentuate wealth disparities. An exacerbation of Korea’s already highly competitive nature of education may also occur, with the starting point for students becoming grossly unequal due to the ubiquitious usage of secondary supplements. Fundamentally, however, students from less advantaged backgrounds will be the hardest hit — they will be deprived of the opportunity to learn regardless of personal merit and hard work. Education has long been perceived as a key to moving up the social ladder, and it has been believed that any diligent individual may succeed in a rags-to-riches fashion. As financial wellbeing becomes the defining factor that discerns one’s starting grounds in education, meritocratic recognition will give way to the entrenched molds of social hierarchy.

Such ramifications are the result of a structural flaw, not a personal one. As we approach the conundrum of disparities in scholastic ability, it is imperative that we do not point the blame towards the fortunate who have a spare dime to invest in pricier methods of education, and take one-dimensional approaches in doing so. Ban private schools — parents will flock towards public schools in affluent areas. Forbid private education and tutoring — they will blossom into an undercover black market.

Reconciliation on the grounds of a trustworthy education system is the remedy, and the strategic strengthening of public education is exigent. More of the national budget must be allocated to the education department to ensure that they are able to react swiftly to any disruptions. Concerning the pandemic, all public schools should be obligated to conduct interactive, real-time classes and institute in-person classes whenever possible. When public schooling is strategically bettered and every student is offered the same levels of education, parents will feel less pressure to enroll their children in private schools.

All children, regardless of their fortunes or privileges that may set them above or below their peers, are obliged to complete their education. Public education must go on, no matter what – it cannot be implicitly reduced to the sidelines. The innate ubiquity of public schooling is why its diminishing status in society should be perceived as a social problem that deserves a pervasive resolution.