Certain universities are trying to use the "same category special selection" process being implemented starting for the 2008 entrance year as a way to give privileges to applicants from special purpose high schools. The idea is to expand the range of categories, saying students from foreign language high schools are in the "liberal arts" or "humanities and social sciences" categories. They are essentially saying they are going to use the "same category special selection" procedure as an opportunity to fill every last entrance slot with students from special purpose high schools as a way to provide for those high schools at a time when the government is going to place greater importance on high school grades in the university entrance process.
It was a few days ago when the Seoul Board of Education announced it was going to create two new special purpose high schools by the 2008 entrance year, and that move is being criticized for going against pyeongjunhwa ("equalization") policy. There are already an increasing number of special purpose high schools, so if graduates are also going to receive privileges from universities existing policy will be shaken significantly at its roots. It will just be a game of words, when in actuality "equalization" gets applied to the students who do not do as well.
Furthermore the basis for the existence of special purpose high schools is vague. They are supposed to be exactly what they sound like, schools with the special goal of fostering the education of students in specialized areas such as foreign languages or the sciences. If their graduates use universities' "special selection" procedures to enter colleges of law, business, and medicine en masse, then is no reason to have high schools that concentrate on foreign languages or the sciences like we have currently. The bigger problem with entrance privileges for students from those high schools is that it will make the competition to get into them more intense and by doing so threaten normal classroom education at elementary and middle schools.
The irresponsibility of education officials is much of what made the situation come to this. From the very start the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development set guidelines on applications for "same category special selection," separating language and liberal arts on the one hand and science and engineering on the other, but then did not provide details. The ministry is going to leave the work of dealing with this issue to the Korean Council for University Education, just like it has done with the standards for the university entrance essay examination. Does the education ministry have the will to bring normalcy to high school education? The confusion originating in education officials' vague approach must not be allowed to continue for long.
The Hankyoreh, 16 June 2005.
[Translations by Seoul Selection (PMS)]
[Editorial] Special "Privilege" High Schools |
