SEOUL - SOUTH Korea's next government on Wednesday unveiled a four trillion won (S$6 billion) programme to make all high school graduates fluent in English.

Among other measures, a plan drawn up by the transition team of next president Lee Myung-Bak called for English classes in primary and secondary schools to be taught only in English. Mr Lee takes office on Feb 25.

About 23,000 teachers capable of teaching solely in English would be recruited by 2013.

Lee Joo-Ho, a team official in charge of education, said the project would help parents reduce growing private tuition fees in a country which puts huge importance on education.

'Our English education has a systematic flaw,' he said, adding that students or parents spent nearly 15 trillion won (US$15.8 billion) annually on private English classes and programmes.

He said the new plan would give all high school graduates reasonable fluency in spoken and written English.

South Korea's education system has been criticised for being overly focussed on achieving qualifications at the expense of practical results.

Students begin learning English at the age of nine but many have to go abroad or spend extra hours at costly private institutes.

From next year 3,000 teachers would be selected to receive special training programmes at home and abroad and all English classes in middle and high schools would be be taught solely in English by 2012.

Critics, however, said the plan could backfire.

'I'm afraid the new plan might damage the public education system due to general degradation of the quality of teaching,' Lee Kil-Ryong, of Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, told Yonhap news agency.

The conservative Chusun Ilbo newspaper acknowledged in an editorial that state education is inadequate but added: 'We cannot achieve our goals by concentrating on English alone.' -- AFP