Youth policy platform upgraded for W2.1b sees counseling use drop 92% in first year

A government-run integrated youth policy platform, upgraded at a cost of 2.1 billion won ($1.57 million), saw its counseling usage fall by more than 90 percent in the first year of the new system's operation. The number of homepage visitors also dropped to less than half the previous year's figure, partly due to a change in how visits are counted.

According to data that Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Park Min-gyu, a member of the National Assembly's Political Affairs Committee, obtained from the Office for Government Policy Coordination on Monday, telephone counseling sessions on the Ontong Cheongnyeon platform totaled 4,534 last year — a 91.9 percent drop from 55,881 in 2024.

Online in-depth counseling also fell 64.9 percent, from 6,258 cases in 2024 to 2,198 last year. Combined telephone and online counseling dropped 89.2 percent over the same period, from 62,139 sessions to 6,732.

Ontong Cheongnyeon is an integrated platform that aggregates youth policy information scattered across central government ministries and local governments and provides real-time, personalized counseling services to young people. The Office for Government Policy Coordination upgraded the existing system and launched the new platform in January last year. A total of 2.16 billion won was spent on the "integrated youth policy platform development (informatization)" project last year.

In the platform's first year after the upgrade, however, homepage visitors numbered only about 2.21 million — a decline of about 2.68 million, or 54.8 percent, from roughly 4.89 million in 2024.

Direct comparisons of visitor numbers require caution because the counting method changed. The Office for Government Policy Coordination attributed the drop to a switch from log-based analysis to script-based analysis, as well as a short promotional period for the new platform.

Counseling usage — unrelated to the change in counting method — also fell sharply, yet the Office for Government Policy Coordination did not separately address the reasons for the steep decline in counseling figures, according to sources.

"No matter how many youth policies are created and gathered in one place, they are useless if young people do not know about them or use them," Park said. "We need to closely examine why visitor numbers and counseling usage actually fell sharply after spending more than 2 billion won to upgrade the platform."

Park added that the Office for Government Policy Coordination, as the control tower for pan-government youth policy, "must not stop at simply collecting and providing policy information," and called on it to become "a practical channel where young people can talk about their difficulties and be connected to the policies and support they need."