South Korea to designate 'reading-intensive grades' as students swap books for phones

By Kim Yong-jae, The Herald Business

The Ministry of Education plans to designate third- and fourth-grade elementary school students, first-year middle school students, and first-year high school students as "reading-intensive grades" as part of a broader push to revitalize reading education in schools.

The ministry announced the initiative Wednesday, framing it as a plan to help students encounter books naturally at school and grow into self-directed readers who seek out books on their own.

A central pillar of the plan is strengthening the link between classroom instruction and reading. The ministry will solicit up to 1,000 curriculum-linked reading lesson models each year through 2030, with students reading subject-related books during class and engaging in follow-up activities such as research and discussion. Approved models will be organized by subject and learning standard on "Dokseoro," the ministry's reading education platform, so teachers can incorporate them into their lessons.

The ministry also plans to operate reading-focused pilot schools. It will convert existing reading education pilot schools into a classroom-centered model and designate 40 schools per year through 2030. Designated schools must run at least 16 sessions of reading-based instruction and curriculum-linked reading project classes per academic year.

Each reading-intensive grade will receive tailored programs suited to its level. For third and fourth graders, the ministry will develop and distribute programs aimed at students with low reading interest or those who struggle with academic reading.

For first-year middle school students, reading will be integrated with free-semester theme-choice and career-exploration activities, and support for student clubs focused on discussion and writing will expand from 500 schools in 2027 to all middle schools by 2030. First-year high school students will receive support through online career-reading mentoring — where students explore career paths by reading books in their areas of interest — as well as outreach reading and humanities education programs.

The ministry will also develop diagnostic tools to assess individual students' reading tendencies, covering interest, attitude, habits and disposition by school level. The tools will undergo a pilot run in 2027 before full deployment from 2028.

To spread a reading culture within schools, the ministry will support voluntary school programs such as a daily 10-minute morning reading drive to help students build reading habits. The initiative will launch at 1,000 elementary, middle and high schools this year and expand to all such schools by 2030.

School library functions will also be strengthened. According to supplementary materials, the share of schools with libraries rose from 80.4 percent in 2002 to 98.4 percent in 2024, and the number of books per student climbed from 5.5 to 37.8 over the same period. However, only 16.47 percent of schools have a certified teacher-librarian on staff — a gap critics say limits professional reading education and effective library use. The ministry said it will work to raise that figure to at least 30 percent.

The ministry will also overhaul the legal and institutional framework underpinning reading education. It plans to pursue an amendment to the Framework Act on Education to codify the reading education responsibilities of central and local governments, and will launch a policy research project to revise the current School Libraries Promotion Act — which focuses primarily on library establishment and operation — into a broader legal basis for reading education as a whole.

"Helping our children experience the intrinsic joy of reading, even amid the flood of digital media, is the most important role of reading education," Education Minister Choi Kyo-jin said. "We will provide systematic reading education centered on classroom instruction so that the pleasure of reading becomes part of students' daily lives."