A majority of South Koreans have no confidence in the government's educational policy, a survey by a state-run research institute found Wednesday.
The survey canvassed 2,000 adults aged 19 to 74 across the country and only 8.7 percent of the respondents said "yes" when questioned if they have trust in the government's education policy, the Korean Educational Development Institute (KEDI) said.
The rate was down 1.8 percentage points from 10.5 percent from the same survey conducted in 2013.
More than 56 percent said "no" while 32.9 percent and 2.3 percent said "so-so" and "have no idea," respectively.
"Chances are high that the people's lack of confidence in the government's educational policy is due to the limitation in their access to information and participation arising from the authority's top-down method of forming policies and the shortage of information-sharing on policies," the institute said in a report based on the result of the survey. It called for measures to raise the confidence.
The people's confidence in school teachers also remained low.
Only 18 percent of the respondents said they have trust in the ability and attitude of elementary, middle and high school teachers, while 40.7 percent said they didn't, a contributing factor to the nation's high dependence on private education.
The 2014 survey was conducted twice in July-August and November last year. (Yonhap)
