New college entrance exam

By Yoon Sung-ah

Lee Ju-ho, minister of education, science and technology, announced the finalized plan for the 2014 national college entrance exam last month. It has been more than three months since word first came out, with many revolutionary alterations being brought up.

However, after three months of discussion, the finalized plan does not seem to contain many of the proposals that were made earlier. There must be various reasons for this, but as a high school student who will be affected by this plan, disappointment is hard to hide.

Regardless of whatever debate educational experts or National Assembly might go through, the main party involved in this issue is the students. Thus, the plan needs to be carefully thought out, considering what is best for them. The revised plan does not seem to reflect this very well, though.

With the fever for education higher than ever, students are under enormous pressure to enter college.

The reformation of the plan was expected to relieve this pressure somewhat by giving the students two chances instead of risking everything in just a single day. Students also sought to lay off the burden of overly specified social studies and science subjects. All of these high hopes are now gone.

Some educational critics have pointed out that holding the exam twice might foster even more private education, such as intensive tutoring during the time between the two tests. Considering that overheated private education is a major social issue, these arguments would have been hard to ignore.

However, it is important to remember why this revision is being made in the first place. The ministry’s initial motive was to relieve the burden on test takers.

Since the national college entrance exam is a critical standard for universities to measure an applicant’s abilities, the students feel more pressure on this single day than the whole three years of high school. If the students are given at least one more chance, the mental stress they feel will be cut to less than half.

The failure to combine social studies and science subjects is also disappointing. The proposal faced strong opposition from teachers, asserting that subjects other than English, Korean, and mathematics, which are still useful in life, would get neglected.

From a student’s perspective, this is not quite true. Students still need to study these subjects anyway, since they are included in their mid-terms and finals.

Mid-terms and final exam scores also matter in college applications, so it is unlikely that students will give up on other subjects entirely. It is just that we don’t want to exhaust ourselves taking too many exams in just a single day. The same goes for the elective second language and Chinese characters as well.

When making a decision that will affect others, the most crucial factor that needs to be taken into account, is how the main party involved feels about the decision. Teachers, governors, and educational experts will all have things to say, but the final decision should be made in the students’ best interests.

Like all other things in life, this plan cannot be perfect. Although it is important to satisfy the demands of as many people as possible, the adults need to remind themselves of the main purpose of this plan. Small changes can be made later on to reflect each party’s needs after the big picture is framed, based on the students. After all, adults are not the ones who will take the exams.

The writer is a student at the Gyeonggi Academy of Foreign Language.