The National Education Commission is debating extending the school day for first- and second-graders, sparking a clash between policymakers and educators. Supporters argue that aligning instruction time with the OECD average will reduce parents' reliance on private tutoring centers, known as hagwons in Korean. However, teachers' groups warn that longer classes will merely delay the daily after-school hagwon cycle without solving the underlying gap in after-school care. The commission, the National Assembly Futures Institute and the Korean Educational Development Institute held a joint policy forum on Thursday at the National Assembly Library. The event marked the commission's first public debate on lengthening the school day for young students. Shorter school days strain working parents Hwang In-hyeok and Seong Mun-ju, associate research fellows at the National Assembly Futures Institute, presented data showing a severe gap in instructional time. Korean elementary students receive 655 hours of instruction a year, falling about 22 percent, or 190 hours, short of the OECD average of 845 ho