Education in South Korea is provided by both public schools and private schools. Both types of schools receive funding from the government, although the amount that the private schools receive is less than the amount of the state schools.
South Korea is one of the top-performing OECD countries in reading, literacy, mathematics and sciences with the average student scoring about 519, compared with the OECD average of 493, which ranks Korean education at ninth place in the world. The country has one of the world's highest-educated labor forces among OECD countries. South Korea is well known for its high standards about education, which has come to be called "education fever". The nation is consistently ranked amongst the top for global education.
Higher education is an overwhelmingly serious issue in South Korean society, where it's viewed as one of the fundamental capstones of South Korean life. As education is regarded as a high priority for South Korean families, as success in education is crucial for channeling one's social mobility to ultimately improve one's socioeconomic position in South Korean society. Academic success is often a source of pride for families and within South Korean society at large as much of the South Korean populace view success in education as the main propeller of social mobility for themselves and their family as a gateway to the South Korean middle class. Graduating from a top South Korean university is the ultimate distinctive and distinguishing marker of prestige, high socioeconomic status, promising marriage prospects, and a path to a prestigious and respectable white-collar professional occupation. Many South Korean parents hold high educational expectations for their children starting from a young age, as such parents take responsibility by actively emphasizing high academic achievement and actively monitor in their children's academic performance by ensuring that their children do well in school and earn top grades in order to qualify and secure enrollment in the nation's most esteemed universities, as gaining entrance into a top-ranked and prestigious South Korean university is the typical pathway that leads to a prestigious and well-paying professional white collar occupation. To uphold the family honor and tradition, many South Korean children are expected to go to a top university and pursue a prestigious white collar professional occupation as their future career of choice. Starting from a young age, an average South Korean child's life revolves around education as the parental demands to succeed academically is deeply ingrained in a South Korean child from an early age. Students are faced with immense pressure to succeed academically from their parents, teachers, peers, and society. This is largely a result of a society that has excessively overstressed an enormous premium on the importance of going to university, as those lacking formal university education in South Korea often face social prejudice as well as significant life-long consequences such as stagnant and lower socioeconomic status, diminishing marriage prospects, and low probabilities of securing a respectable white collar and professional career path.