Education Minister
Ahn Byong-man |
By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter
Minister of Education, Science and Technology Ahn Byong-man has been fighting against increasing private education costs since he took office in 2008.
In an effort to realize his ambitious goals to cut these costs, Ahn has pushed for an evaluation program for teachers.
Under his leadership, the ministry will conduct teacher evaluation programs at all elementary and secondary schools starting from the spring semester, this March.
Ahn believes that the quality of teachers is pivotal to public education and hopes it will help parents and students to break from their reliance on private education institutes or hagwon.
Although the bill to legalize the implementation of the assessment program has yet to be passed by the National Assembly, Ahn has vowed to launch it using measures within the current Education Law, saying, "the evaluation of teachers cannot be postponed any more."
Once the program is implemented, students, parents and fellow teachers will appraise teachers and principals on 18 categories.
Teachers who rank at the bottom of the evaluations will be required to attend training programs and high performers will be given incentives, including a sabbatical year.
The results will be available to the public through school Web sites and education authorities will use the data when ranking schools.
The development of an English proficiency exam is another project within the ministry to try and reduce private education spending.
Last week, Ahn announced that colleges can use the results of the state-developed English tests in selecting students from 2012, when the exam is scheduled to debut.
Ahn said, "I am trying to persuade college and university presidents to discontinue the use of TOEFL and TOEIC scores for admissions as soon as possible."
English education accounts for more than 33 percent of the total private education costs, according to the ministry. Many colleges have used TOEFL and TOEIC scores when recruiting new students pushing parents and students to pay large amounts of money for the tests.
This is why Ahn personally requested that the tax authorities look into TOEFL organizations.
Ahn plans to offer the state-developed tests in a pass-or-fail format, so that students who pass the test will no longer need to continue to study for higher marks, saving money on English tests.
All told, Ahn says that the aim is to enable students to communicate in English with little difficulty after six years of study in middle and high schools.
If he succeeds, it will be seen as a revolution of sorts for Korea's education system that is obsessed with English and math. If he fails, it will be just another blip in the long list of unsuccessful attempts. But it will determine how Ahn, the scholar-turned educator, will be remembered.
kswho@koreatimes.co.kr
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