Education Fever

5. The Entrance Examination System

140 5 The Entrance Examination System Perhaps the most vivid illustration of South Korea’s obsession witheducationhasbeenwhattheKoreansterm“examinationhell”(sihômchiok) or “examination mania.” Soon after 1945, an intense competition emerged for advancement into prestigious, upper-level institutions by obtaining high scores on secondary school and university entrance examinations. Since entrance to any university has been largely determined by the scores on these annual entrance examinations, students have spent most of their waking time preparing forthem. This preparation has included evenings and weekends at cramschools and costlyprivate tutoring, which have greatlyadded to the ¤nancialburden for many families. If the main purpose of South Korean education has been status, then it has been these entrance examinations that have been the key mechanism in that process. The examination system is central to understanding the dynamics of the Korean educational system. It created a high-pressured, narrowly directed educational system and contributed to the role of education as a fundamental mechanism for social advancement. The dominant role of the examination system illustrates the importance of education as a determiner of social status, the Korean concern with rank and status, and the universal desire for and belief in the possibility of upward mobility. The failure to establish a clear, consistent examination policy also re¶ects the extent to which the educational system was shaped by social pressures, the weight of tradition, and the contradictions between an authoritarian state and public pressure that set limits on its effective control over education. the entrance examination system 141 the emergence of examination mania South Korea’s national preoccupation with entrance examinations has a long, historical tradition behind it. Success in the civil examinations (kwagô) was the ambition of almost every upper-class male in Yi dynasty Korea. The modern school entrance examination system, however, was the creation of the Japanese and was retained with only minor modi¤cations by South Korea after independence . After 1945 written examinations for middle and high school entry were prepared by the teaching staff of each school. This was similar to Japanese practice except that Japanese examinations had been divided into verbal and math sections, while after liberation Korean educators chose to switch to subject exams based on what was taught in elementary schools. In 1949, as a result of widespread criticisms of the exams, the MOE ordered that the entrance exams be replaced byintellectualand physical tests and that admittance to higher-level schools be also based on naesin, reports by the teacher of a child’s achievement and character.1 This proved dif¤cult to implement. Criteria for intellectual tests could not be agreed upon, and the teachers’ reports, while enhancing the authority of teachers and appearing to conform to the ideas of progressive education by deemphasizing exams and stressing a child’s classroom performance, also seemed arbitrary and confusing. Examinations appeared simpler to carry out and objective. In fact, few educators were willing to followthe suggestionof American educators and American educational theory in abandoning the central role of the entrance exam as the determiner of a student’s future course. In 1951, the MOE instituted a national comprehensive examination system (kukka yôn’hap kosaje) to provide a uniform entrance exam for all secondary schools.Thisprovedunpopularwithpublicandprivateschoolof¤cials.Although they were allowed to pass 150 percent of the quota of students and select students from among these, secondary school principals and teachers saw the national examinations as an erosion of their authority. Due to widespread protests by school principalsandeducators,theMOEabandonedtheprocedureafteronlytwoyears. There was further experimentation with naesin, but in general, entrance into secondaryschoolsinthelate1940sand1950swas determinedbywrittensubject tests prepared by a school staff or a provincial education board.2 At the university level written entrance exams based on subject areas were given by each university. As in the case of the secondary schools, a brief experiment with a national exam in 1954 proved so unpopular that it was discontinued the following year.3 142 the entrance examination system The test-taking ordeal for South Korean students began with the middle school entrance examination for twelve-year-olds. Although examinations were held at both the middle school and high school level, it was the middle school exam that was critical. Many middle and high schools were under the same principal, shared staff, or had the same owner (if private); in most cases, once a student entered a middle school, he or she was likely to advance into the related high school, although this was not...