Like other East Asian countries with a Confucian heritage, South Korea has had a long history of providing formal education. Although there was no state-supported system of primary education, the central government accomplished a system of secondary schools in Seoul and the provinces during the Choson Dynasty. State schools suffered a decline in quality, and came to be supplanted in importance by the sowon, private academies that were the centers of a neo-Confucian revival in the 16th century. Students at both private and state-supported secondary schools were exempt from military service and had much the same social prestige as university students enjoy today in South Korea. Like modern students, they were often involved in politics. Higher education was provided by the Confucian national university in the capital, the Songgyungwan. Its enrollment was limited to 200 students who had passed the lower civil service examinations and were preparing for the higher examinations.

Primary education is free and compulsory for all children between the ages of 6 and 15. Secondary education consists of three years of middle school and three years of high school. In the 1997-1998 school year some 3.8 million pupils were listed annually in kindergarten and elementary schools and 4.7 million in middle and high schools, including vocational high schools. Private schools play an valuable role, particularly above the primary level. The nation has 297 institutions of higher education, with a total annual enrollment of 2.5 million students. The principal universities are Korea University ,Seoul National University,Ewha Women’s University, and Yonsei University ,all in Seoul; Chosun University,in Kwangju; and Pusan National University .An around 100% of the adult population of South Korea is literate—99.8 % of the men and 99.8% of the women.