A piece of video titled "Triangle of Death" is rapidly spreading on the internet. There are 10,000 searches for it every day, and it is criticism of the new university entrance procedures for 2008. While the government, the Korean Teachers and Education Worker’s Union (Jeon Gyo Jo), tutoring and supplementary academies, and universities wrestle with each other, a perfect balance between high school performance, the aptitude test, and tests particular to each university is achieved. Students go crazy competing over performance at schools and then preparing for the aptitude and writing tests at institutes.
The contents are similar to something some high school students protested against last year, when it first appeared. However, the video is far more emotionally persuasive. You feel horror at hearing someone ask, "How is it creative to trample on your friends and make enemies?" It is why you already hear people worry about sensitive students taking dangerous courses of action.
And so the video only makes you angry. It makes no attempt to look at what brings about the "balance of death." The new entrance system is basically about making grades from three years of high school more important than ever before. That means aptitude test scores are going to be taken less into account, and the writing test will be prevented from becoming yet another "test particular to each university." That is the right approach, because it places greater emphasis on high school education and seeks to render private tutoring irrelevant.
The problem is the universities. They want to make high school performance less important, and make their own particular tests the most important. In other words, they want to maintain the way they are ranked among themselves. So how are high schoolers supposed to react? It is they who will suffer the consequences. High school performance and university-specific tests need to be kept distinct from each other.
University rankings are a fundamental cause of the alma mater clique society, and they cause high schools and their students to be ranked in one long list as well. That means the end of relevant formal education and private tutoring on the rampage. In that kind of environment you end up raising drones who solve test problems, not creative talent.
If the goal is good, it must be seen through. If there is confusion, it will lead to conflict, and you would be better off not having any new ideas to begin with. The government needs to demonstrate more leadership and make the results of a student's life in high school be what is at the center of university entrance. High schools need to be the ones that have the substantial authority to evaluate students. This is not the time to incite wild debates with suggestions like special university entrance procedures for technical high schools. Real estate may be a pressing issue, but the government should not go about it with tactics like reorganizing high school districts, and idea that has not been thoroughly evaluated.
The Hankyoreh, 30 March 2006.
[Translations by Seoul Selection]
[Editorial] Who Makes HS Students Go Crazy? |
