Thousands of after-school care attendants are threatening a one-day strike Friday, demanding better working conditions. A coalition of nonregular school workers announced Wednesday that more than a quarter of its 13,000 members working as after-school care providers are expected to join the walkout. That is about 3,300 workers at 2,200 elementary schools nationwide. The planned action is to blo...

Even COVID-19 patients and those with symptoms won’t have to miss the life-defining Suneung, Education Ministry says

Seoul will provide all first-year students in the city’s middle and high schools with a one-off stipend of 300,000 won ($265), starting from next year, the city‘s education office announced Thursday. “When children advance to middle or high schools, households have to provide them with new uniforms, textbooks, stationery items and, in the coronavirus situation, smart devices,” said Seoul Metropo...

Nearly 80 students and college admission consultants have been nabbed on charges of producing ghostwritten essays and other papers for writing competitions, which were later used to embellish college entrance applications, according to police Thursday. The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said it has booked 18 workers at a college admission consulting institute in southern Seoul and 60 students ...

A former high school counselor suspected of leaking copies of a US college entrance exam was arrested in Seoul late Tuesday night. The man, identified only by the surname Lee, is under police investigation for allegedly taking photos of US Scholastic Aptitude Test papers for three years beginning in 2017 while he was working as a career counselor at the Hankuk Academy of Foreign Studies, a high ...

A local court on Tuesday began reviewing whether to issue an arrest warrant for a high school counselor suspected of leaking test papers for a US college entrance exam. The Seoul Central District Court is expected to reach a decision Wednesday. The suspect is a former career counselor for the Hankuk Academy of Foreign Studies, a prestigious boarding high school in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province. Pol...

Five South Korean educational institutions are partnering with the Asian Development Bank to improve the quality of education in the region. They are the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation, the Korean Educational Development Institute, the Korea Education and Research Information Service, the Korea Research Institute for Vocational Education and Training, and the National Education Tr...

South Korean students will take in-person classes more often starting this week, as attendance cap restrictions in schools have been eased amid a recent drop in new coronavirus cases. The Ministry of Education raised the attendance cap, currently at one-third in elementary and middle schools, and two-thirds in high schools, to two-thirds for all schools last Sunday, in line with the government's...

Six universities, including the nation’s most prestigious Seoul National University, were found to have breached the government-set evaluation standards in their portfolio-based admissions process, the Education Ministry said Wednesday. The six caught with rule breaches in the ministry’s special inspection from Nov. 13-Dec. 6 are Seoul National, Korea, Sogang, Sungkyunkwan, Kyung Hee and Konkuk ...

Schools in South Korea will raise their attendance caps for schools in line with the recent easing of social distancing guidelines. Many hope this will narrow the achievement gap among students from different socioeconomic backgrounds, which has widened since the start of the coronavirus outbreak. The Education Ministry announced Sunday that all schools will be allowed to have two-thirds of the...

South Korea's education ministry on Sunday said it will ease attendance caps for schools after health authorities decided to enforce the lowest level of social distancing measures. Schools around the nation are required to operate with antivirus limits amid the coronavirus pandemic. Currently, attendance is capped at one-third in elementary and middle schools, and two-thirds in high schools. Bu...

The Seoul Foreign School has appointed the interim head of the Swiss International School in Qatar as its high school principal, it announced Sunday. Nancy Le Nezet will be leaving her current position in Qatar to lead SFS High School at the start of the 2021-2022 academic year. SFS is an international independent school in Seoul for more than 1,450 students aged from 2 to 18 years. Le Nezet ha...

Private elementary schools have held more in-person classes than public ones, a lawmaker said Wednesday, claiming it to be evidence of the “unequal” disruptions in students’ learning amid the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the office of Rep. Lee Tahney of the Democratic Party, private elementary schools in Seoul offered an average of 4.2 in-person classes per week, compared to just 1.9 at publi...

Calls for smaller student bodies grow as virus outbreak hampers in-person learning in crowded classrooms

South Korea saw over 500 reported cases of COVID-19 among students in the past four months, according to a lawmaker on Friday. The total number of reported COVID-19 cases among kindergarten, elementary, middle and high school students between May 20 and last Friday stood at 561, Rep. Jung Chan-min of the main opposition People Power Party said, citing data provided by the education ministry. Th...