'It's the Education Ministry, stupid'

By Park Moo-jong

The headline of this Friday column is "It's the Education Ministry, stupid" as you can see. This could be a sort of series about newly-emerging problems in this society following last week's "It's the statistics, stupid." The first one was "It's the history, stupid," three years ago.

Of course, I borrowed Bill Clinton's words "It's the economy, stupid," which may be one of the most famous election campaign phrases in modern history, and did contribute to the success of the former Arkansas governor in the 1992 U.S. presidential election against then President George H. W. Bush.

The phrase has had numerous variations: "It's the regulation, stupid," "It's still the economy, stupid," and "It's the size, stupid," etc. And I added some. But now I hate to use it again. But I had to do so again today due to what makes people feel irritated and uneasy, anew, hoping this will be the last.

The topic of today is the ever-changing university entrance examination formula.

Anyone who remembers exactly how many times the nation's college entrance exam system has changed over the past 60 years must deserve to be called a "genius."

Since the establishment of the Republic of Korea in 1948, the test formula has suffered changes 17 times, forcing students to become "lab rats," and embarrassing both teachers and parents.

The different formulas for the present first, second and third graders at high school prove this, humiliating the proverb that education is a farsighted policy for growing generations and of a state spanning 100 years.

In short, the government is to blame. To be more precise, the Education Ministry has been stubbornly at the center of public criticism for its signature policies based only on armchair theory.

Frequent changes of the education minister have also caused serious confusion when ministry officials try to maintain policy consistency, as testified to by the wayward entrance system. The Moon Jae-in administration has kept this tradition well by changing its inaugural education minister after 15 months, making him a scapegoat for the fuss.

Finally, angry parents recently rolled up their sleeves to "study the university entrance system and to propose their own alternatives," complaining that the current formula was not for students, but for parents and they lacked information about how it would change.

The bold action by parents comes as no surprise when the education authorities have lost their confidence as far as the exam formula is concerned. They fulfill their duty by paying tax and are so entitled to receive the "right" educational administration services. But what they face every year is an incomplete and unpredictable system.

One of the foremost goals of Korean parents is that their children go to one of the nation's "prestigious" universities. Failure is tantamount to a family disaster. When a high school student enters his senior year ― third grade in Korea ― their family's lifestyle changes like the exam formula to help them concentrate on preparing for the exam.

In particular, Korean mothers who are unrivaled in the world in wanting education fro their children shoulder a large burden. They go to bed only when their child is done studying and tucked in for the night. Even on Sunday morning, many mothers are busy driving their children to a hagwon, or cram school, by 9 a.m.

The Sunday morning traffic jams in the Daechi-dong area of southern Seoul, the home of many "famous" cram schools, never fails to surprise visitors from other relatively quiet locations.

Then, how do we sort out this mess?

The answer is quite simple. The government should take its hands off since this confusion stems from its intervention.

In other words, the ministry should loosen its grip on the university entrance exam. It needs only to supervise and guide the schools on the right path for the education of the next generation after giving them a free hand in recruiting their students.

Universities should be given the right to pick students according to their own criteria and traditions. Some may worry about possible ill effects such as cash donations in exchange for admissions; yet it's the basic role of government to wipe out corruption and irregular practices.

It is crystal clear that the admission exam formula will be shaken with the advent of every new administration as long as the education ministry has the power to decide on it. The ideological color of the regime should not affect education policy.

Otherwise, an independent apparatus, composed of education experts, teachers, professors and parents may be a good option to help devise an effective and consistent policy that will not change for a 100 years or longer.

To be frank, Korean universities' international competitiveness is ever weakening, even in Asia. The government has to leave it in hands of the schools as to how they recruit their students and how to help them study in order to survive the ever-intensifying competition in this global village.

If the education ministry continues to be reluctant to stand back from entrance exam policy, it will eventually lose the reason for its existence.

It is a pity that the ministry is trying to go a step further ― it seems that only the government agency itself does not know the seriousness of the situation it now faces.

Park Moo-jong (emjei29@gmail.com) is a standing adviser of The Korea Times. He served as the president-publisher of the nation's first English daily newspaper from 2004 to 2014 after working as a reporter since 1974.