Private education posted record highs for both spending and participation last year in the wake of the full lifting of social distancing rules.

According to data released by Statistics Korea on Tuesday, spending on private education stood at roughly 26 trillion won, or some 20 billion U.S. dollars, in 2022, up nearly eleven percent on-year.

The figure is the largest to be posted since 2007 when the statistics agency began to make related announcements, while the on-year growth is the second-largest to be recorded since 2021.

The agency estimated that the average expenditure on private education per student across elementary, middle and high school came to 410-thousand per month last year, with the biggest surge in spending on elementary school students at over 13 percent compared to 2021.

Meanwhile, the agency also found that more than 78 percent of students had taken part in private education last year, up two-point-eight percentage points from the year before.