, the government said it would reduce the number of school teachers going forward, citing a decline in student numbers.
Currently, 13 universities that train aspiring elementary school teachers take in 3,847 students every year. Besides Ewha Womans University, the only private school on the list, the remaining 12 schools will be impacted by the reduction plan, which will see the annual quota reduced to 3,390 seats in 2025., as the number of graduates from teaching colleges exceeds the number of teaching places available at elementary schools.
This “appointment crisis” comes as more than 150 elementary schools across the nation had no new first-graders enrolling in 2024. Some 369,000 children enrolled in elementary school in 2024, the lowest number of new first-graders since the government started recording such statistics in 1970. Even with the reduction, there is still the possibility of an appointment crisis as the number of seats in training universities is expected to be higher than the number of spaces for new hires. According to the Ministry of Education’s teacher supply plan, the number of new elementary teachers will be between 2,600 and 2,900 per year from 2026 to 2027.