Copyright to Cover School Test Kits
By Bae Ji-sook
Staff Reporter
Private cram schools and book publishers quote school test questions free of charge in classrooms or in their books. However, in the near future, they may have to pay regional educational offices copyright fees.
The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education said Wednesday it is seeking to grant copyright ownership to the authors of mid or final term examinations as well as quizzes.
In this case, private cram schools or Hagwon, book publishers or educational Web site runners will either be unable to use any of the questions or must pay copyright royalties.
A spokesman for the education office said the measures will encourage schoolteachers to come up with new types of questions for every test.
``It is true that much of the content used in the private education market is based on school exam questions and teachers often complained how devastated they are to learn some Hagwon teachers using the same or questions similar to theirs. Some teachers spend days and weeks working on creative and appropriate questions,'' said Kim Dong-seok, the spokesman for the Korean Federation of Teachers' Association.
The group sued a private online institute dealing with school test questions in 2005 and the Supreme Court acknowledged teachers' copyright last year. Still many private tutors are still using public educational school test kits to save costs, the group said.
Many teachers are negative about the plan to sell their questions through educational offices. Most schoolteachers want their test questions to be banned from any commercial use. Kim Dong-seok also opposed selling the kits. ``It should not become another form of business governed by public administration,'' he said.
The educational office will finalize details of the copyright issue before the new school semester begins in March.