Ⅶ. Education, Leisure and Cultural Activities(Article 28, 29 and 31) 1. Competitive education geared to college entrance tests and the high costs of private education 1) Current situation 75. The problem of excessively competitive school education remains unresolved. The consequences are that children suffer physical and mental health problems and the children who have failed to adapt themselves to the competitive atmosphere drop out of school. Some stressed-out children even kill themselves. The Government has proposed various new systems in a bid to normalize public education, including the designation of autonomous private high schools and the college admission officer system, but it is feared that those systems have rather stepped up private education in the course. Disproportionate competition for college entrance, overemphasis on educational background, the growing costs of private education and the widening educational divide have yet to be solved. 76. According to the '2009 OECD Educational Index' released by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, Korea topped in the privately burdened portion of public schooling expenses. More precisely, the Korean Government covers 4.5% of the total public schooling expenses (which is lower than the OECD average of 4.9%) while the individual people pay 2.9% (which more than triples the OECD average of 0.8%). 77. The burden of private education costs is quite heavy. The 2009 statistical data on education shows that the private education participation rate of elementary and secondary school students was as high as 75.8%. According to a report of the Statistics Korea, the total cost of private education for elementary and secondary school students across the nation was estimated at 20 trillion 900 billion won in 2008. Private education expense accounted for 3% of the monthly average household expenditure in the 1990s, but it sharply grew to 12% in 2008. It is also reported that the households with the monthly average income of 7 million won or more spent 880% more on private education than the households that earned less than 100 million won per month, indicating a wide gap in private education expense between the haves and the have-nots. 2) Questions 78. What actions does the Government take to address the educational problems of excessively competitive school education, overemphasis on college entrance and too costly private education? - 20 -