[Editorial] Prevent Cheating on 2006 Scholastic Ability Test

Ten days before the College Scholastic Ability Test, test takers and their parents, tense enough already, suddenly find themselves terrified. That would be because material that could be used for cheating on the test appeared on the homepage of the Seoul Office of Education. For a short time on the afternoon of November 10, internal guidelines for operations related to the test appeared on the office's homepage before soon being deleted. It had been downloaded, however, and was already circulating on the internet. The authorities say that it would be hard to use the material for wrongful purposes, but the case shows you how seriously careless they are.

After last year's test, Gwangju was overtaken by larger numbers of news crews. They say it was the largest number of reporters there since the May 18th Gwangju Democracy Campaign in 1980, and they had gone there because a huge cheating operation had been uncovered, one that used mobile phone text messages. Eventually 327 students had their results nullified. Only a year later, ten days before the 2006 test, education officials committed a big mistake. Their easygoing attitude can also be seen in how immediately after the incident last year they produced all sorts of preventive measures to keep the same things from happening again, only to almost let those become useless because the legislation got delayed while they sat back and did nothing.

There is no time left to criticize them for their approach. What is urgent now is keeping test takers from succumbing to the temptation to cheat. Prevention is what is important, not punishment. The temptation to cheat begins in the belief you will not get caught. Supervision at test sites has long been too weak. Preventive measures must therefore be found in thorough supervision and test management. When cases of organized cheating are discovered, test supervisors and administrators must be held responsible as well. They should not give up on prevention just so that arrests can be made, like the police did last year in Gwangju. Schools and parents must also take a stand. Education superintendents in the country's provinces and independent cities recently adopted a joint resolution calling for fairness. Students need to give ear to the earnest pleas of adults trying to persuade them to follow a righteous path.

The Hankyoreh, 14 November 2005.

[Translations by Seoul Selection]