“Just 1 Mistake Could…”: South Koreans On Government’s War On ‘Killer Questions’
Activists advocating for education reform stress the need for broader changes.
South Korea’s leader has initiated a campaign against challenging exam questions and after-school cram centres, but activists argue that true education reforms will only be effective if the government addresses the intense competition faced by teenagers trying to gain admission to top universities, according to a report in South China Morning Post (SCMP). The move has also hit to students hard five months before the crucial university entrance tests.
In recent weeks, officials have cracked down on after-school study sites, known as hagwon, and conducted tax raids on major centres where students stay till late at night to prepare for crucial university entrance exams.
These actions were prompted by President Yoon Suk-yeol’s criticism of the inclusion of “killer questions” in the notoriously difficult SATs, or Suneung. Expressing concern, President Yoon said that it was “extremely unfair and unjust” to test students on topics that were not covered in the official curriculum.
He accused the education authorities and private tutoring industry of colluding and functioning like “cartels”. In response, the education ministry launched an online platform to report irregularities related to private tutoring, including misleading advertisements, inflated fees, and alleged connections with SAT question setters, said the SCMP report.
According to a 2021 report by the Seoul Metropolitan Bureau of Education, over 100 Seoul schools were found to have posted false or misleading advertisements and received warnings or fines as a result.
Tax authorities also conducted unannounced investigations at the country’s top three cram schools, including the largest one called Megastudy. The presidential office warned that hagwon suspected of tax evasion or other irregularities would face legal penalties.
Megastudy reported a 19 per cent increase in annual sales to $635 million last year, with operating profits surging 36 per cent. In 2022, there were approximately 85,000 hagwons across South Korea.
The head of Megastudy, Son Ju-eun, dismissed allegations of collusion between the private tutoring industry, public education authorities, and those who set the SAT paper. Son stated that the private tutoring industry thrived in response to changes in the SATs, specifically the inclusion of challenging “killer questions”.
Son also predicted that the private tutoring market, worth $16.7 billion last year and accounting for 1 per cent of the country’s total GDP, would decline due to South Korea’s low birth rate. The number of births dropped from around 400,000 in 2016 to 290,000 last year.
President Yoon’s criticism of “killer questions” has caused anxiety among students and parents, especially since it comes just months before the crucial annual tests in November.
While some believe removing these questions would negatively impact the top-performing students who excel at challenging problems, others argue that it is necessary to create a fairer testing environment.
“I felt like I was struck by lightning only five moths before Suneung,” an 18-year-old girl at Hangaram High School in Seoul told SCMP.
“Now, just one mistake in Suneung could push you down from the top level to the third level, and change the entire course of your life, as there would be a lot of students who will receive almost perfect scores,” a private math tutor told the outlet.
Activists advocating for education reform stress the need for broader changes. They argue that the country’s highly stratified education system, which fuels excessive competition, must be corrected to truly address the issue of private tutoring dependency.
Although the government’s planned reforms may not be sufficient to ease the competition, activists urge the authorities to focus on equalising educational opportunities rather than implementing superficial changes like removing killer questions.
A joint report by the education ministry and government statistics bureau revealed that nearly 80 per cent of students rely on private education, such as cram schools. This heavy reliance has contributed to South Korea having the highest cost of raising a child in the world, as reported last year.
