Education at the heart of Korea’s economic growth
Korea has been particularly successful in raising its education levels over a relatively short period of time. In 1970, about 67% of the labour force had a primary education, 26% had a secondary education, and about 6% had a university-level education. In three decades, Korea achieved universal primary and secondary education, and by 2010 Korea had the largest proportion of 25-34 year-olds with at least an upper secondary education among OECD countries. Today, some 98% of 25-34 year-olds in Korea have an upper secondary education – 55 percentage points more than the proportion of 55-64 year-olds with that level of education.