Daegu Metropolitan Office of Education to Implement 30-Student Limit per Class... Targeting 24 Elementary and Middle Schools

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Daegu Superintendent of Education Kang Eun-hee. [Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Dong-wook] In the Daegu area, schools with more than 30 students per class in elementary, middle, and high schools are expected to disappear in the future.

According to the Daegu Metropolitan Office of Education on the 30th, currently, there are 11 elementary schools and 13 middle schools in Daegu where the average number of students per class exceeds 30. Some schools in the Suseong-gu and Dalseo-gu areas show high density. In the case of high schools, except for the specialized school Gyeongbuk Arts High School, there are no schools with more than 30 students per class.

In this regard, the Daegu Metropolitan Office of Education plans to gradually reduce the number of students per class starting next year, prioritizing schools where the average number of students per class exceeds 30, considering financial conditions and teacher staffing. This is to actively respond to the demands for student safety and qualitative improvement of future education in preparation for the post-COVID-19 era.

The most urgent issue to resolve overcrowded schools is the establishment of new schools and the expansion of classes. To this end, securing budgets for facility and operating costs and recruiting teachers and other personnel are necessary, but it is difficult for the city and provincial offices of education to solve this independently. This is because they do not have authority over teacher staffing and rely on local education finance grants for budgets.

Considering this, the Daegu Metropolitan Office of Education plans, in the short term, to convert special classrooms or management offices into general classrooms for elementary schools and to continuously operate joint school commuting zones so that students from overcrowded schools can commute to nearby small schools if they wish. For middle schools, starting with freshmen in the 2021 academic year, they will implement a "maximum number of students per class assignment system" to allocate no more than 32 students per class.

Some middle schools with high demand from education consumers have inevitably assigned up to 34 students per class, but from this year, the upper limit for the number of students assigned per class for middle school freshmen in the 2021 academic year has been set at 32. The Daegu Metropolitan Office of Education plans to reduce this number by one student annually so that by 2023, the number of students per class will be adjusted to 30 or fewer.

In the long term, despite the decrease in the school-age population, for areas expected to have a large number of students due to development projects, new schools will be established or additional classrooms will be secured through expansion or reconstruction of existing schools. Currently, until 2025, development project operators, Daegu City, and the Daegu Metropolitan Office of Education are jointly investing approximately 175.3 billion KRW to expand 313 general classrooms in 28 schools.

A representative of the Daegu Metropolitan Office of Education stated, "We will actively strive to resolve overcrowded schools so that we can create a safe educational environment for students and provide more attention and quality future education, making this an opportunity to establish a new school education paradigm."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.