SEOUL: The average number of students per elementary school class in South Korea could fall to single-digit levels within the next decade due to ultralow birth rates, a teachers' group said Thursday. The Good Teachers Movement announced the estimate during a forum held to discuss low birth rates and education reforms, basing the forecast on school-age population data released by Statistics Korea in June last year.
According to Yonhap News Agency, the average number of elementary school students per class could drop from the current 21.1 to 9.3 by 2033 and 8.8 by 2034. The group added that the figure could fall further to 5.5 by 2060 and 2.7 by 2070. "The fall in the number of students is too fast now. This could lead to all systems that have been maintained for a long time collapsing at once," the group said, calling for measures to cope with the shrinking student population.