South Korea's first-grade enrollment set to fall under 300,000 for the first time

First-grade enrollment in South Korea is on track to break below 300,000 for the first time, according to projections from the Korean Statistical Information Service and the Korean Educational Development Institute reported by The Korea Times. The incoming class, made up of children born in 2020, is due to start school in the 2027 academic year. The milestone arrives only three years after enrollment dropped under the 400,000 mark.

The slide is already visible. This year's intake came in at 301,442 first graders, the lowest since the government started counting in 1964. Enrollment peaked in 1986 at 1.05 million. The 2020 birth cohort that feeds the next class totaled 272,337, a 10% drop from the year before, according to the Ministry of Data and Statistics.

Empty classrooms are forcing closures, especially outside the capital region. The cumulative number of shuttered elementary, middle and high schools reached 4,037 in 2026, up from 4,008 the year before, per Ministry of Education data. Schools in shrinking areas are down to a handful of students per grade, which limits peer interaction and narrows academic offerings, The Korea Herald reported.

That gap risks pushing more families toward the capital, pulling even more students out of the communities they leave behind. First-grade numbers are expected to keep falling through 2030, though they should stay above 200,000 based on 2024 birth figures. There's a flicker of a turnaround in the birth data: national births rose to 238,317 in 2024 and climbed again to 254,341 in 2025, the Ministry of Data and Statistics said.