President Yoon Suk Yeol’s comments regarding the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT), which were construed as instructing the education ministry to make the test easier, are causing confusion among students and parents, just five months before the state-administered college entrance exam is to be held.
The remarks in question were made on Thursday, when Education Minister Lee Ju-ho said during a media briefing that he was instructed by the president to exclude what is not taught at schools from the annual exam, as part of educational reforms.
One of the top three reforms being pursued by the Yoon administration, along with labor and pensions, is overhauling Korea’s education system.
Students and parents say the president has aggravated their worries by making controversial remarks, which could exert an influence on the difficulty level of the CSAT, which is regarded as one of the most important academic events in a Korean person’s life.
As the remarks led to criticism that there could be confusion among students who have already established their study plans ahead of the exam, the presidential office distributed some changes to Yoon’s remarks to the media.
It was very unprecedented to attempt to change the administration’s official comments, hours after they were already reported and had made the headlines in local media.
The changed version focused more on the need to reduce students’ reliance on private crammers.
“If the exam requires students to have excessive background information and deals with material not covered by public education, such as nonliterary questions at the college level, isn’t that asking them to completely rely on private crammers?” Yoon was quoted as saying by his office.
Nevertheless, the remarks were still construed as the president pointing out the high difficulty level of the CSAT as one of the factors that cause parents to spend more on private crammers, raising speculation that this year’s exam would be easier as instructed by the president.
What fueled such speculation was the education ministry replacing a high-ranking official in charge of university admissions, Friday, just a day after Yoon made the critical remarks about the exam.
That official took her post in January this year. It is unusual for the ministry to replace a director-level official who oversees CSAT-related affairs, one of the most important policies of the ministry, within six months.
Regarding this, Vice Education Minister Jang Sang-yoon told reporters that the replacement was to censure the official, as a mock CSAT exam that was carried out on June 1 included some questions beyond what is mentioned in public school textbooks.
“The government set its policy goal in March to produce a fairer CSAT exam and the June 1 test was our first trial,” Jang said. “That official was reprimanded as she failed to reflect this policy in the mock exam.”
Amid intensifying confusion, the presidential office once again attempted to clarify Yoon’s remarks.
Senior presidential secretary for press affairs Kim Eun-hye said in a written briefing that Yoon did not talk about an “easy exam or a “hard exam” when he said the test should exclude what is not taught at schools.
“The education ministry should exclude areas not covered by the public education curriculum from the exam, while maintaining the assessment ability,” the president was quoted as saying by Kim. “Setting questions not covered by public education amounts to education authorities forcing students to use the services offered by the private tutoring industry. This is very unfair.”
But those comments did little to appease students and parents.
One mother wrote on an online forum, “The president should know that his remarks could exert an enormous influence on the difficulty level and direction of the exam. I think he should be careful about even a word regarding the exam so as not to stir our children who are at an important time of their lives.”
