By Kim Tae-jong
Staff Reporter
Parents and students will now be able to know how schools are rated according to the performance of their students.
The measure comes as President-elect Lee Myung-bak's transition committee last week requested the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development to release data regarding students' performance at all elementary and secondary schools nationwide.
The release of scholastic performance is aimed at motivating the schools and teachers to strengthen competitiveness and enhance the quality of education, transition team sources said.
But some fear the scheme is too revolutionary and foresee it drawing strong opposition from schools.
Currently, the education ministry conducts a sample survey on students from the sixth grade, seniors from middle schools and freshmen from high schools for the evaluation of students' performance.
The result is also disclosed in the form of a regional average without detailing the performance at individual schools.
This partial disclosure of results has been in place as schools and teachers feared total disclosure would cause students to favor only a few top schools.
``The release of the scholastic performance for each school will bring about severe competition between schools and damage the education system in general,'' a spokesman from the Korean Federation of Teachers' Associations said.
Due to this concern, the recently revised law on the release of school information has excluded the data for the comparison of students scholastic performances at each school although it requires them to offer detailed educational and financial information on their Web sites every year.
The decision by the transition committee is expected to lead to some amendments in the revised law, which will come into effect on May 26, according to the sources.