Education minister Kim Jin Pyo has departed on a tour of the country's universities to explain the entrance testing procedures for the 2008 entrance year, and his first stop was Sungkyunkwan university. Conservative media are overflowing with criticism saying his visits are designed to feel like threats, but that sounds desperate. Major officials in the education ministry and the "education reform commission" are getting involved and encouraging schools to cooperate with the new procedures. Bureaucrats have long been used to reigning from high above, but you can see their determination to bring normality to formal education in their changed attitude.
The new system is designed to reduce dependence on aptitude test scores and give high school records a bigger role in determining university entrance. The schools that have taught students for three years while watching them and testing them are in the best position to evaluate their abilities. It is utter arrogance to think you can learn about someone's ability, aptitude, and character with a test or two.
The problem is the attitude taken by the universities. The so-called "seven private universities" announced at the end of last year that they will take school test results (naesin) less into account and give more weight to entrance tests they themselves develop. They might as well be declaring that they are going to revive the system of testing where each university runs its own tests and thereby increase dependence on private tutoring and further render classroom education irrelevant. They say it is because they cannot trust high school test results, and that they cannot differentiate one applicant from another with the scholastic aptitude test. Education experts, however, say that universities should be able to differentiate one applicant from another by balancing high school test results and scholastic aptitude test results. The attempt by schools to strengthen the entrance tests they themselves develop will only make hierarchy of universities more permanent and thereby keep them from being able to select even better students.
Part of the criticism is that the authorities are denying universities their autonomy, but that is something that is won through social responsibility and harmony. The biggest task before us regarding social responsibility is the normalization of school education. We hope the authorities and the universities need to be more humble and have a more open attitude, and then work to create a university entrance procedure that achieves the goal of normalizing formal education.
The Hankyoreh, 18 March 2006.
[Translations by Seoul Selection]
[Editorial] A New Attitude From Education Ministry |
