Private tutoring should be reported from Sept

All the people, except for collegians and graduate school students, offering out-of-school lessons or ¡°kwaoe¡¯¡¯ to primary and secondary school students have to report their activities to education offices and pay income tax beginning this September. Those who fail to do so will face fines of up to 1 million won.

Schoolteachers and educational officials are banned from tutoring students outside school. The measures were agreed on in a policy consultation meeting between top officials of the government and the ruling Millennium Democratic Party held at the National Assembly on Tuesday.

The participants, including MDP chairman Suh Young-Hoon and Education Minister Moon Yong-Lin, agreed to revise the Law on the Establishment of Private Institute and Operation to that effect in the ongoing extraordinary Assembly session.

However, education experts doubt the new system would help curb private lessons of high fees, citing the loopholes in checking those who do not report and imposing taxes on them.

They also worried that college and graduate school students might seek to earn big money as their main profession, rather than just earning their school fees.

The envisioned revision bill provides that private tutors shall register their activities with education offices in metropolitan cities or provinces and report their income to the National Tax Service once a year.

The taxes will be imposed on a graduated scale, and the tax exemption point is expected to be decided on between 1.1 million and 1.5 million won.

Registered private tutors will be recognized to be engaged in the job every month unless they report their quitting the job.

Private tutors have to report their personal history and their earnings to the education offices, which will inform them to the tax offices directly.

The government and the ruling party also decided to sort out those who make incorrect reports, by making them public what they report when there are inquiries about the reported contents from other people.

They also decided to consider accepting the report through fax or Internet for the convenience of the reporters.

The Education Ministry will set up sections to receive the report at 16 city and provincial education offices and 180 regional offices across the nation.

Kim Jo-Nyung, chief of school policy office at the ministry, said, ¡°The report system will have a psychological effect to restrict tutoring of high fee. We will seek to reduce the demand for private tutoring by importing a formula under which teachers are responsible for basic academic ability of academically retarded children.¡±