Desperate Parents Resort to Appeals to Office of Education... "Getting Into a Special School Is Harder Than Getting Into Seoul National University"

[Anchor]

To send a child with a disability or developmental delay to a special school, families must wage an intense admission war starting at least a year in advance. This is precisely the season for submitting applications for next year. With a severe shortage of special schools, entire families are traveling across the country in search of a school.

Reporter Park Soo-jin has the story.

[Reporter]

Eight-year-old Seon-yul has autism spectrum disorder and an intellectual disability.

Seon-yul's family moved from Seoul to Gangwon Province last November to find a special school for him to enter.

[Shin Young-in / Mother of a child with autism spectrum disorder: Because Seon-yul cannot speak for himself, I thought he needed to study in a specialized environment.]

There were no eligible schools in the neighborhood where Seon-yul used to live, and nearby schools faced extreme competition rates.

[Shin Young-in / Mother of a child with autism spectrum disorder: Somebody told me that getting into a special school is harder than getting into Seoul National University.]

Quite a few parents sign housing contracts without even viewing the properties just to submit their applications in time.

[Parent who migrated to Jeju Island: The application deadline was the very next day, and I only found out about it the day before. Without visiting the place, I just contacted a real estate agent and made a preliminary contract.]

Over the past 20 years, the student population has decreased by about 36%, but the number of students requiring special education has more than doubled.

While education is available in special or regular classes within mainstream schools, children who desperately need special schools due to severe disabilities are pushed down the waiting list because of a lack of schools.

[Parent applying for a special school in Gyeonggi Province: They told me the competition rate was low this year at around 5-something to 1, and that it was much higher before.]

The mother of Si-ha, a boy with severe physical disabilities, even submitted an appeal to the Office of Education while filling out an application for a special school.

[Baek Hye-jin / Mother of a child with a physical disability: Without a professional educational environment and active support from adults, Si-ha's day-to-day life is bound to be perilous.]

The current administration promised the establishment of 20 new special schools as a national agenda task, but only 1 was added last year.

Experts advise that instead of large schools encompassing both elementary and secondary levels, building smaller, decentralized schools near neighborhoods is a more realistic alternative.

[Kim Gi-ryong / Professor of Secondary Special Education at Jungbu University: We can scale down special schools—having them run only elementary programs or only middle and high school programs, making special schools smaller like that...]

One parent, who ultimately gave up on special schools and picked up an application for a regular school, shared her desperate feelings.

[Mother of a child with autism spectrum disorder: We take the 'Age 4 Exam' just to go to kindergarten, and the 'Age 7 Exam' just to go to school. We are simply trying to get the learning that is truly necessary...]

(Reporting Producer: Yoon Taek | Design: Choi Ha-neul, Kang Yoon-jung, Hwang Se-yeon)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.