Four out of ten second-year high school students in South Korea say they want to quit learning mathematics.

A 2025 survey of six-thousand-358 students and 294 teachers at 150 schools nationwide revealed that 30-point-eight percent of sixth graders in elementary school, third-year middle school and second-year high school students said "yes," when asked if they wanted to quit studying math.

Eighty-point-nine percent of the students said they experienced stress from mathematics, according to the results of the survey released Tuesday by the civic group The World Without Worry About Private Education.

When asked why they wanted to quit, 42-point-one percent of students cited difficulty in math questions, while 46-point-six percent of the teachers mentioned students' lack of basic academic skills and deficiencies in learning.

Sixty-four-point-seven percent said they were enrolled in private education for math, of which 85-point-nine percent said they have an experience of learning from curriculums at a level higher than their actual grade in order to get ahead.

The survey was conducted between November 17 and 28 last year.