Education, Science and Technology Minister Ahn Byong-man explains about the government’s plan to reform the state-run standardized test at a session of the National Assembly, Monday. / Yonhap |
90 Percent of Education Offices Misreported Exam Results
By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter
More than 90 percent of regional education offices were found to have misreported the results of the state-administered standardized test at all primary and secondary schools across the nation last October.
The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology said Monday this came to light after it had examined the test papers submitted by 180 regional education offices.
The number of such incorrectly reported tests results reached 32 percent, or 16,402 out of the total of 51,675. Moreover, 650,000 answer sheets, which account for 7.2 percent of the total, have been lost. Many schools were negligent in keeping answer sheets even though they were required to keep them for three years.
Four city and provincial education offices ㅡ Seoul, Daegu, Daejeon and South Jeolla ㅡ have already received institutional warnings over the misreporting. Three other offices, including South Chungcheong, South Jeolla and North Gyeongsang got institutional cautions, while dozens of other regional offices have been given disciplinary warnings.
However, no one in the ministry has been held accountable for the mismanagement of the test, which it said is aimed to help boost competition among schools and will be used as a benchmark for their assessment.
In February, some regional education offices, including Imshil Education Office in North Jeolla Province, were found to have fabricated test results in an attempt to rank themselves as top-performing offices, harming the credibility of the test assessment system. Ahn Byong-man, the nation's top educator, apologized over the incident.
The fabrication cases forced the ministry to start its own investigation of all test results and reporting by schools.
``Despite the large number of misreported cases, each office's academic level did not show critical gaps with those previously announced,'' ministry official Jang Ki-won said at a press briefing. ``Those who were responsible for the fabrication will be held accountable. We will introduce new assessment schemes to prevent any such recurrence.''
However, the ministry failed to reveal how the ministry could tell whether teachers misreported the test scores deliberately or by mistake.
As countermeasures to the ``poor'' assessment system, the ministry will make regional education offices, instead of each school, responsible for grading of the test. It will also reduce the number of questions and subjects to make the test simpler.
About 12 schoolteachers have been dismissed for protesting against the uniform test.
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