The coronavirus epidemic has fueled a boom in private tutoring, putting more pressure on Korea's notoriously stressed schoolkids instead of making their life easier as they study online.
Parents now push them even harder with one-on-one tuition at home since group lessons in crammers are still thought to be potential coronavirus hotbeds. There is a perfect balance of demand and supply as university students who earn pocket money teaching are also locked out of their universities and those who study abroad are stuck in Korea.
Out of 1,700 Korean students in Hong Kong, only 150 remained and the rest came back. Some 20,000 people, most of them students, returned from Australia. Most people who came back from North America and Europe were also students.
Jeong Da-ram, a 15-year-old middle schooler in Seocho, Seoul, had much busier schedule this year although she did not go to school. As she spends more time at home online learning, her parents arranged for more private tutoring sessions.
"Since May, I've been getting private tutoring in English conversation, grammar, and reading comprehension from a teacher who studies abroad," she said. "My mother said I should really work on my English when I have time. I won't be able to do it once I go back to school and my teacher goes back to the U.S."
One 23-year old woman who graduated from a university on the west coast of the U.S., returned to Korea and is preparing for a law school in America because she thinks job prospects in Korea or the U.S. are slim.
"I thought I would have trouble finding tutoring work in Korea but it didn't turn out to be the case," Park said. "I thought parents would hesitate to bring an outsider into their home because of the virus, but some vacancies were created by the departure of native speakers who returned to their home countries. Also, I think families who can afford it think of this as a golden opportunity to put their kids ahead of the pack."
Families where both parents work depend more on private education. Son Min-ji, a 40-year-old mother of two children, one in middle school and one in elementary school, said, "It's a problem whether I work from home or go to work. I can't stand seeing kids play games all day when I work from home, and if I go to work, then I'm worried about my kids who are at home alone. So I ended up sending them to crammers and have private tutors."
One consequence could be that the education gap between rich and poor kids widens even further. Lee Su-jeong, a 38-year-old middle school teacher in Seoul, said, "Many parents think online learning is not effective. That's partly because we were unprepared in the beginning and didn't gain their trust. If children lose interest in school, their educational achievement will be totally dependent on parent's interest and financial capabilities. Until we return to normal classroom teaching, we urge students to stick with online teaching."
