Korean students go through brutal academic schedules for 12 years until they are liberated in college. The entire nation spends enormous amounts of time and money on children’s education. Calendars of elementary school and middle school students are packed with private tutoring and academic institution classes. They spend two lives a day, one at school and the other at the after-school study programs until midnight. The daily life of high school students is indescribable. If there was a global award for the number of hours spent studying, Korea would win hands-down.
The nail-biting competition and pains of a dozen years are all geared toward one day each November ― to take the national College Scholastic Aptitude Test. Knowing this, many people are uncomfortable with what has transpired concerning a World Geography question in last year’s CSAT. The now-infamous question asks if EU’s gross domestic product is bigger than that of NAFTA member countries in 2012. The suggested answer to the question is a “yes.” But it turns out that as per the IMF and World Bank estimates, the GDP of the NAFTA region has surpassed that of the EU in 2010. Therefore, the correct answer to the question should have been a “no.”
It is interesting to note the reaction of the Ministry of Education. It argued that as long as the textbooks state that EU’s GDP is larger than that of NAFTA (even if based on old stats), it should be taken at face value. In other words, whatever the textbook states is the correct answer. Not surprisingly, the students went to court against the ministry to reverse the decision.
After a yearlong legal battle culminating in its defeat at the Seoul High Court on Oct. 16, the ministry issued a formal apology and vowed to take remedial steps for the victimized students.
As all college entrance procedures for the 2014 academic year have long been completed ― the academic year is almost ending now ― it is not clear how a remedial action can be taken and how wide it can be. A special legislation is now being contemplated to save the victims of this unprecedented grading mistake.
It does not require rocket science to realize that asking a question, the answer to which can change virtually every year, is a dangerous gamble itself. In the evening of the CSAT exam day, the whole nation anatomizes the questions with sighs, tears and hoorays. How such a question could pass the multiple filtering process is unfathomable.
Here is the real problem. Even if the question had been correctly posed and graded, i.e., stating that the EU GDP used to be bigger than NAFTA in the past (which is indeed a correct statement), how in the world could students have been expected to know this? The difference was so minimal ― as of 2007, EU GDP was $17 trillion while NAFTA members’ was $16 trillion. Students would need to memorize the entire textbook to get this question right.
Going by the MOE signals, the last thing a high school student would do is to look outside textbook and hear outside the classroom. Expecting students to bury their heads into the textbooks and forget about everything else is both anti-educational and unrealistic. In fact, this cookie cutter education policy is contrary to the “Creative Economy,” a national slogan for some time. The MOE’s recognition of the mistake, though belated, is a wise decision to contain the damage, but the incident is a wake-up call that the country’s education system requires a fundamental overhaul.
This year’s CSAT is just 10 days away. After all the hard work and agony of 12 years, students deserve better questions ― and more courteous treatment.
By Lee Jae-min
Lee Jae-min is an associate professor of law at Seoul National University. ― Ed.
