The son of the man who was chief of admissions at Sogang University is being accused of cheating his way into the school in last year's year-round selection process. At a private high school in Seoul, a teacher was found to have been the one who filled in the answers on a student's final examination, and that student's father turns out to be a prosecutor. Parents around the country were already upset over the high school ranking system and irregularities in the scholastic aptitude test, now they have been hit hard again over these new instances where parents used their influence for their children's wrongful advantage.
When a high school student who does not have advantageous high school performance scores (naesin) and scored average on the scholastic aptitude test is the only test-taker out of 2,667 to score100 percent on the English composition section of Sogang University's entrance test, suspicions are inevitable. The chief of admissions at Sogang got a professor with whom he was personally close to sit as a member of the test question selection committee. The Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development performed an audit of the situation and thinks it was highly likely the questions were leaked. It suggested the test be taken all over again, but the university refused. You worry that this is the kind of autonomy private universities are calling for.
In the case of the high school teacher who filled in the answers for the student who is the son of a prosecutor, the school and the local education authorities have been weak in responding to the situation, failing even to immediately check into whether the reports were accurate. There needs to be a thorough investigation, especially if you remember that the teacher would not have engaged in such senseless behavior without taking the position of the student's father into consideration.
It is always the student who suffers the most when there are irregularities. This time as well, the high school student transferred out of his school after the news broke out, and the Sogang University student has probably already been seriously hurt. The people who caused their pain are the people closest to them, their family elders.
Whether we like it or not, tests determine our young people's future, and so it is more than your serious problem if schools are so careless with the way tests are managed. The year-round university entrance process is the epicenter of all kinds of rumors, so there needs to be a fundamental improvement in the situation after an accurate inquiry. Currently there hasn't even been full clarification of the facts about the son of Lee Ki Jun and his entrance to a Korean university as a foreign national, something that became an issue in the recent controversy that ended with Lee's resignation as Deputy Prime Minister of Education and Human Resources Development.
The Hankyoreh, 20 January 2005.
[Translations by Seoul Selection (PMS)]
[Editorial] Parents Wielding Influence in Children's Scores |
