The Ministry of Education is drastically expanding public support for college admissions counseling to restructure the private tutoring-dominated admissions information market around public education. The plan involves building a counseling system staffed by 500 active-duty teachers and introducing an artificial intelligence-based chatbot to improve access to information.
The Ministry of Education and the Korean Council for University Education announced Wednesday that they have appointed 500 experienced teachers with extensive college guidance backgrounds as the "College Admissions Counseling Teacher Corps." The corps will provide one-on-one counseling for students and parents from this month through March next year.
Counseling will be offered via both phone and online channels. Phone consultations are available on weekdays from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. and on Saturdays until 1 p.m. Online counseling through the college admissions information portal "Adiga" will be available year-round. The system is designed to lower barriers by making counseling accessible to anyone.
Starting this year, the ministry will separately strengthen counseling for the Comprehensive Student Record Evaluation, an admissions track where demand for private tutoring is concentrated. From July, newly established online one-on-one sessions with specialized counseling teachers will provide customized consulting. The sessions will reflect evaluation criteria based on student records and collaborative materials from university admissions officers.
An AI-powered conversational chatbot will also be introduced at the end of June. Students and parents can use the chatbot to check complex admissions information in a question-and-answer format, including comparisons of university-specific admission guidelines and analysis of past cutoff scores against individual grades. The Ministry of Education said the counseling teacher corps and schools will use the same data, enhancing consistency and accuracy in counseling.
Support for vulnerable groups will also be provided. The ministry is newly launching a program that directly visits child care facilities to offer career and college admissions counseling. The initiative aims to narrow the "starting line gap" by supporting academic motivation and career planning together.
The ministry is also strengthening information provision ahead of reforms to the college admissions system for the 2028 academic year. The Ministry of Education and the Korean Council for University Education plan to release "College Admissions Information 119," containing analysis of major admission tracks, in November. Starting in July, they will hold regional briefing sessions in partnership with major universities on a rolling basis.
A Ministry of Education official said, "We will strengthen the public college admissions counseling system to reduce information gaps and ease demand for private tutoring."