[KS] Korean education and literacy during the colonial era

[Javier Cha]

Dear Professor Ho,

Here are the figures computed from the Office of the
Governor-General's annual statistical report for 1944.

대졸: 0.03%
전문학교졸: 0.10%
중졸: 0.88%
국고졸: 0.22%
국초졸: 7.18%
국초퇴: 1.12%
간서수(서당): 4.30%
불취학: 86.18%

You can access this data from the Statistics Korea website. http://kosis.kr/

The literacy rate in colonial Korea, according to statistics, was
geographically very uneven. In 1930, the national average was 49% for
men and 11% for women (age 12 and above). In Seoul, however, 80% of
men and 44% of women could read and write Korean, and in P'yongyang
83% of men and 40% of women. Plus, about 53% of men and 15% of women
in Seoul were bilingual.

The most comprehensive compilation of statistics for colonial Korea in
English, still, is Andrew Grajdanzev's Modern Korea. Here is a Google
Books link: http://books.google.com/books?id=5jp8-KKy6eAC&dq=modern+korea&source=gbs_navlinks_s
(credit should go to my cohort John S. Lee who introduced me to this
book a while back.)

Javier