By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter

Some teachers and parents boycotted a state-administered scholastic aptitude test for third-grad elementary schoolers Wednesday, which the government revived for the first time in 10 years.

The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology brought back the exam to enhance academic achievement through competition. Nearly 600,000 third grade elementary students at 5,756 schools took the test in reading, writing and basic math.

However, parents of some 160 children in Seoul took them on a field trip to protest the test which they say could be used as a tool to rank schools by test scores and only boost what they call unnecessary competition among schools.

``Parents opposing the test sent their children to the field trip program,’’ said Jung Kyung-hee, director of the parents association for equal education.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Korean Teachers and Education Workers’ Union (KTU) released a statement criticizing the ministry, saying the uniformed test will put more burden on students.

"The uniform test is an act of suppression against students' human rights, and ranks students and schools into a hierarchy based on their scores," the teachers' union said in the statement.

As a means to protest the test, some members of the union reportedly encouraged children to help each other solve questions. Some teachers also said students may refer to textbooks and told students it was not necessary to return answer sheets.

In response to the movement of the teachers’ group, the ministry announced that teachers disturbing the government's exam could face dismissal. ``Their attempts to hamper the state-run exam will be subject to punishment according to education law. We will take stern measures against those teachers,’’ a ministry official said.

The exam has been introduced to measure students’ academic level and is the first time all students have been tested since 1998.

kswho@koreatimes.co.kr