Structure and Future Directions of Private Tutoring in Korea: A Market Perspective
This study analyzes the structure of private tutoring in Korea from a market perspective to project its future directions. Through a literature review, it examines the concept and characteristics of private tutoring, the market's scale and structural relationships, the industry's size and challenges, and policy evolution. Based on this, it explores the decision-making processes of private tutoring consumers, providers, and the government, presenting a future outlook that reimagines its educational role.
First, private tutoring originated as supplementary activities and "extra lessons" added to public education. Following Statistics Korea’s 2008 survey, it gained institutional recognition as the representative term. The concept of private tutoring encompasses diverse definitions, and its characteristics strongly contrast with public education across institutional, educational, and managerial dimensions.
Second, Korea's private tutoring market shows continuous growth, estimated at approximately KRW 37 trillion (approx. USD 28 billion), encompassing learners from early childhood to adulthood. The market expands as consumers and providers perceive private tutoring as an investment good, whereas the government perceives it as a consumption good. Its scale continues to evolve within societal structural relationships.
Third, the private tutoring industry is expanding its businesses and workforce, holding a high proportion of the industrial sector. However, generating educational, economic, and social issues, it faces negative public reputation and policy regulation. This suggests providers must renew their awareness of "private tutoring social responsibility(PTSR)" and seek practical internal ways to mitigate these problems. Strengthening providers' professional identity and consciousness toward the common good is essential.
Fourth, policies were implemented within legal frameworks aimed at reducing both tutoring demand and supply. However, within a competitive social structure, policy effectiveness remained limited due to perceptual gaps among consumers, providers, and the government regarding educational ideals and realities. Future policies must be grounded in a multidimensional understanding of private tutoring, aligning with individual and societal interests through a balanced evaluation of its harmfulness and usefulness.
Finally, while the future of the Korean private tutoring market will change according to the decisions of consumers and the government, it will depend particularly on providers' beliefs in educational management, their commitment to the common good, and their practical engagement in private tutoring research and activities.
Keywords: private tutoring, Korea, shadow education, private tutoring market, private tutoring industry, private tutoring policy.
KAPTS International Conference,
24-25 April 2026
Multi-Stakeholder Perspectives on Tutoring Demand and Supply:
Learning from Commonalities and Diversities across Asia and Beyond
In 2025, UNESCO published a global report entitled Whose Visions for What Learning? Perspectives, Policies and Practices in Private Supplementary Tutoring. It was authored by Mark Bray for a Policy Forum framed as a ‘multi-stakeholder dialogue for common good’. The stakeholders convened for the event at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris included managers and employees of tutoring companies, government policy-makers, school administrators, teachers, researchers, parents, and students.
The event noted wide diversity across the world – Asia is different from Africa, the Americas, Europe, and the Middle East – and within Asia is further diversity across and within countries. Yet commonalities are evident in the drivers of demand and the nature of supply. The fundamental driver of demand is social competition, with variations according to cultures and economics. Tutoring providers position their work in relation to school systems, which themselves have much commonality across the globe despite variations; and government policy-makers are increasingly concerned about regulation of tutoring not only by companies but also by school-teachers and informal providers.
Beginning with and going beyond the UNESCO report, this presentation will invite conference participants to learn from comparisons of private-enterprise initiatives and government policies around different parts of Asia. Thus, what can Korean stakeholders learn from other countries? And, by corollary, what can visitors from other countries learn from Korean patterns and experiences?
A welcome dinner will be held on the evening before the conference. This gathering provides an opportunity for invited scholars and organizers to align perspectives and reaffirm the purpose of our shared inquiry. Professors Mark Bray and Ora Kwo may offer brief reflections on their involvement in the preparation process, setting the tone for the dialogues that will follow during the conference.
(*Participants joining the dinner individually will do so at their own expense.)
Registration for internatinal conference is open until April 8, 23:59 (UTC+9, Seoul time)
