KOREA'S LOW BIRTH RATE

[Anchor Lead]

The so-called demographic cliff is observed not only in rural communities and small cities, but also in large metropolises. One public kindergarten in Daejeon, a city with a population of 1.5 million, got only one applicant during the kindergarten admissions period last month. More than half of the city's public kindergartens failed to meet their quotas of incoming students.

[Pkg]

This kindergarten is affiliated with an elementary school in Daejeon. Only one child applied to this kindergarten for the school year 2020 during the admission period that ended on November 29th. More than half or 53 out of 103 national and public kindergartens in Daejeon failed to get enough applicants to fill their student capacities. National and public kindergartens used to see fiercer competition for admission than private ones, but now the table has been turned. The lack of kindergarteners has caused concerns to mount over the possibility of a school-age demographic cliff occurring in the Daejeon area. Already experiencing a steady decline in population, the city of Daejeon's birthrate for the third quarter this year stood at only 0.84%, the lowest in the nation. Experts believe that kindergartens and schools will not be able to fill their capacities repeatedly. Some critics point out that the Daejeon Office of Education came up short in coming up with countermeasures although some kindergartens affiliated with elementary schools in the city filled only 20 to 30% of their student bodies last year.

[Soundbite] KIM IN-SHIK(DAEJEON METROPOLITAN COUNCIL MEMBER) : "The Daejeon Office of Education failed to come up with countermeasures like adjusting kindergarten quotas or merging classes."

The Daejeon Metropolitan Office of Education says that it does not plan to reduce the kindergarten student quotas although the declining number of school-aged children is impacting all areas of the city.