The Korea Times this morning has a very informative article by Robert Dickey that summarizes the continuing strong influence of the university entrance exam (College Scholastic Aptitude Test) on Korean education. Despite many efforts to change it over the years, “education inflation,” “teaching to the test” and the like persist. This article is a good introduction to the current situation.
Some of you may be interested in the post on my Korea Information Society blog about the Ministry of Science and Technology’s plans for digital textbooks.
As reported in The Korea Times today, the state-run college scholastic ability test, which was administered nationwide yesterday, is generally less crucial than it was in the past. Colleges these days use their own methods to select students for admission in advance of the CSAT. A large number of students are accepted during an “early admissions” process and many universities require that those students submit the results of the CSAT test as a sort of “pass-fail” final requirement for admission. For details, read the full article.
The Korea Times today reports that a consortium has been named to organize Korea’s new government-run English proficiency tests. The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology announced Wednesday that a group consisting of the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry and four universities will administer the first grade-level exam of the state tests. Grade one tests will be developed for adults seeking to attend graduate school or gain employment, while grades 2 and 3 will be used for students attending elementary to high school.
The KCCI will cooperate with Seoul National University, the organizer of the TEPS test, Hanguk University of Foreign Studies, developer of the FLEX test, Sookmyung Women’s University, organizer of the MATE test, and Korea University.
A short article in The Korea Times this morning provides another reminder of the high priority this nation places on the college entrance exam. The headline pretty much tells the story. A total of 94 domestic flights and two international flights will be re-scheduled this Thursday, when the annual college scholastic ability tests are administered nationwide. More than half a million high school seniors and repeaters will take the test.
A very informative article appeared in this morning’s Korea Times. It notes that the number of young students going abroad for study has been dropping since 2006. According to the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, the number of elementary, middle and high school students going abroad to study declined from 29,511 in 2006, to 27,668 in 2007 and 27,349 in 2008.
To provide some historical perspective, in 1998 the number of young students studying abroad was only 1,562. This number began steadily increasing until it reached a peak in 2006, as shown in the accompanying graphic.
As of 2008, elementary students took up the largest share with 12, 531 going abroad, compared with 8,888 middle school and 5,930 high school students respectively.
As some of you who follow this blog already know, I author another blog called koreainformationsociety.com. Quite frequently there are posts on that blog that I think might be of interest to people reading this one. After all, education is one of the major pillars, arguably the most important one, in building an information society. Education is at the heart of South Korea’s progress over the past three decades in building an information society.
Also, I realize that many university administrators and others in the U.S. education sector are interested in Korea’s rapidly evolving digital media environment. This nation’s goal of becoming the world’s first ubiquitous society has definite implications for U.S. schools who currently and in the future will recruit Korean students. The new category, Korea’s Information Society, should help to bolster the existing one on “Recruiting Korean Students.”
Comments and suggestions on this new category are welcome.