The so-called "age-4 exams" — level tests administered by private cram schools to preschool children — became illegal on the 1st, putting a brake on a private education frenzy that has drawn alarm from foreign media.
Level tests used to screen applicants for admission or to sort preschoolers into ability-based classes were fully banned starting that day, the Ministry of Education said on the 1st. An amendment to the enforcement decree of the Act on the Establishment and Operation of Private Teaching Institutes and Extracurricular Lessons, approved by the Cabinet on Sept. 22, took effect on Oct. 1.
The ban covers written, oral, practical and interview-style tests, as well as performance-based assessments such as problem solving, assignments and presentations. Indirect methods — including collecting and using score reports or completion certificates issued by outside institutions — are also prohibited.
Violators face fines of 1 million won for a first offense, 2 million won for a second and up to 3 million won for a third. Rewards are available for reporting illegal testing. One exception is allowed: after a child has enrolled, an institute may assess the child through observation and interviews with prior consent from a guardian. Even then, assigning scores or rankings or issuing pass-or-fail results is banned.
Private Education for Young Children That Stunned Foreign Media
South Korea's private education fever for infants and preschoolers is already a globally recognized phenomenon, spawning the term "age-4 exams." According to the Ministry of Education, the number of English-language kindergartens rose to 842 in 2023 from 615 in 2019, while regular kindergartens fell to 8,441 from 8,837 over the same period.
Some English institutes in Seoul's Daechi-dong neighborhood use U.S. third- and fourth-grade textbooks for classes of 7-year-olds, and workbooks for American elementary students circulate on parenting forums as prep material for level tests at the district's "Big 3" English academies.
Britain's Financial Times spotlighted the situation, reporting that academic competition in South Korea is driving half of all children under 6 into exam-prep institutes and that terms such as "age-4 exams" and "age-7 exams" have entered the language. Joan Williams, professor emerita at the University of California, clutched her head upon learning that South Korea's total fertility rate stood at 0.78, saying the country was completely doomed.
Some institutes are already looking for ways around the rules. One English academy in Seoul's Gangnam district accepted level-test applicants only through the end of last month, before the ban took effect, and pushed later test dates back to after children enter elementary school in March next year. Because the law applies only to children who have not yet started elementary school, the academy is delaying testing until after they enroll.
"This revision of the enforcement decree blocks extreme forms of private education for young children, such as the age-4 and age-7 exams, and lays the groundwork for children to grow up healthy," Education Minister Choi Kyo-jin said.
