The university entrance procedures for the 2008 entrance years were changed to normalize education and reduce private tutoring expenditures, but now only those plans are at risk of being watered down completely because Seoul National University (SNU) and private universities are directly challenging the basic direction of the proposed procedures, which seek to move the country away from memorization-oriented education by placing more emphasis on high school grade averages in university admittance. If the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development has any intention of normalizing education it must stop going on about "guaranteeing university autonomy" while acting as a spectator to what is going on.
The gist of SNU's proposed 2008 entrance procedures is about having high school grade averages be given only the same degree of importance while making essay writing more difficult and placing more importance on it. It is easy to see that those procedures are more advantageous for the students from social classes that allow them to receive intensive private tutoring. Even more a problem is that SNU wants to adopt a single essay-writing test for all subjects, disregarding the realities of high school education, which is done along the lines of separate subject areas. It is saying it will be choosing students based on things it is hard to learn in school, welcome news indeed for people in the private tutoring industry. Also, the proportion of "special ability entrants" will be increased significantly, and that process will be far more advantageous to students graduating from "special purpose high schools." Does SNU want to just swipe up all the "superior students" no matter what happens to regular high school education? The entrance procedures announced by private universities in Seoul on Wednesday are pretty much the same as SNU's. There are differences in the details, but in their most basic forms they place more emphasis on essay writing than on high school performance.
It is only natural that activist education groups are so strongly opposed to those entrance procedures that they are calling for them to be scrapped. An organization has been formed by representatives of those groups, called the "Joint Task Force of Educational Civic Groups for Stopping the Revival of University-Specific Entrance Tests and the Abolishment of Murderous Entrance Competition." It held a press conference on Wednesday and demanded that the government "block the revival of university-specific entrance tests and see to it that universities announce entrance procedures that accommodate the education ministry's position on normalizing regular high school education." Though there might be side effects, placing more weight on high school performance would clearly be the option closest to the goal of normalizing high schools. The education ministry must take clear action against the universities that are rejecting that directly.
The Hankyoreh, 30 June 2005.
[Translations by Seoul Selection (PMS)]
[Editorial] Scrap 'University-Specific' Essay Tests |
