hankyoreh

The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology has come under fire for its handling of the nationwide scholastic achievement assessment (ilje gosa) following the discovery that the Imsil Office of Education in North Jeolla Province manipulated its test results before reporting them to the Education Ministry. The Imsil Office of Education had announced that no sixth graders in Imsil county were under performing in the key subjects of Mathematics and English and Korean language, but it was discovered Wednesday that the opposite was true, with a significant number of the schools’ sixth graders under performing in those subjects. Several other schools have also been found to have manipulated their results before reporting them to the ministry. Meanwhile, the credibility of the test itself has been called into question because each school used different standards to score the test and the ministry did not do enough to resolve the problem after the inconsistencies were discovered.

The ministry released the test results on Monday, but problems with the testing system were detected early on. The test was called into question after it was reported that some students either submitted blank papers or submitted papers with only one question answered because they knew their test results would not be reflected in their overall grades, a key factor in the university admissions process. The scoring system was found be problematic because there were no clear standards for scoring more subjective questions, which meant that schools in different cities or provinces were issued different standards for scoring by their regional offices of education.

A teacher at a middle school in Seoul asked, “Who would have earnestly taken the exam because the results weren’t reflected on the school performance records?” Supervision of the exam was loose and scoring wasn’t strict,” the teacher said.

Until 2007, the scholastic achievement assessment was conducted with only three to five percent of the nation’s students, who were selected at random. The Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation, which was responsible for overseeing the scoring process, gathered teachers from around the country in the same place to score the test at the same time. Blank papers were eliminated from the scoring process.

Now, it will be difficult for the ministry to avoid the criticism that its exam preparations were hastily completed. The ministry announced the test results without having ensured that the testing environment and scoring method would be consistent in school districts nationwide.

The ministry has defended itself by saying that because there were so few cases of test manipulation it is a “trivial matter,” that the ministry “supervised all of the tests” and that “manipulation of the test results would have been impossible because the scoring was computerized.”

Experts say it is likely that the government’s belated response will result in the creation of stopgap measures that will not adequately address the problems with the test.

In a debate at the Journalists’ Association of Korea on Thursday, Education Minister Ahn Byeong-man said the ministry “will fully reconsider the process for scoring the tests and gathering the results.”

However, education organizations say that test results could still be manipulated because of the intense competition for better scores and that the solution is for the government to abolish the test altogether.

Eom Min-yong, a spokesperson at the Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union (Jeon Gyo Jo), said, “The manipulation of test results at the school in Imsil, North Jeolla Province, could have been done nationwide. It’s something schools and teachers would be eager to hide and they should take responsibility for their actions and reveal the truth.” The problems with testing and scoring and the government’s decision to disclose its ranking of the test results will only encourage further incidents of test manipulation, she said.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]