Budget Minister Park Hong-keun, left, speaks at a public forum co-hosted by the Ministry of Planning and Budget and the Ministry of Education on reforming the current education funding formula at Government Complex Seoul, Wednesday. Education Minister Choi Kyo-jin, right, also attended the forum. Yonhap
Korea earmarks 20.79 percent of each year's domestic tax revenue to fund elementary, middle and high schools across the country under a decades-old formula designed to insulate education spending from economic and political fluctuations.
This year, however, an unprecedented semiconductor boom is set to swell corporate tax receipts, automatically channeling a substantial share of the windfall into education.
Yet the allocation has already more than doubled over the past decade — rising from 39 trillion won ($25.9 billion) in 2015 to a projected record high of over 80 trillion won this year — even as the school-age population shrank from 6.4 million to 4.92 million.
That growing disconnect has fueled calls from fiscal authorities to overhaul the current formula.
