Selective schooling and its relationship to private tutoring: the case of South Korea

Sonia Exley

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: The notion of selecting students based on academic achievement into different schools at certain points in their educational careers is one that has long been contested in education. In this paper I consider the role selective schooling may play in driving families’ demand for private tutoring – a phenomenon currently growing in many regions of the world. The paper explores the ‘extreme case’ of South Korea – a country with some of the highest spending on private tutoring globally and also a long history of selective schooling. Drawing on interviews with experts and key stakeholders in the Korean education system, the paper reports a number of findings. Interviewees for this project were in many respects critical of a 1970s ‘equalisation’ of Korean schooling, though they also viewed moves back towards selection as fuelling ‘shadow education’. Concern about this has driven governments to curb selective schooling for a second time in Korean history.

Keywords: selective schools; tracking; private tutoring; shadow education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 18 pages
Date: 2020-04-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu and nep-his
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published in Comparative Education, 2, April, 2020, 56(2), pp. 218 - 235. ISSN: 0305-0068

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:102448

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