Absolute Grading in High School Must Not Simply Shift Competition Elsewhere

South Korea’s National Education Commission is pursuing a plan to introduce absolute evaluation for all high-school internal grades from 2030. The change could ease competition based on school rankings, assess how well students meet defined learning goals and fit the aims of the high-school credit system.

A draft of the commission’s national education development plan, obtained by Hankyoreh on the 6th, would abolish the current system of assigning grades according to students’ rank. The change would begin when today’s sixth-graders enter high school in 2030. The commission has also considered switching all subjects in the national college entrance exam to absolute scoring from the 2033 academic year and introducing descriptive and essay questions.

Relative grading measures students against one another rather than measuring their learning achievement, the editorial says. It has fostered excessive competition, blocked opportunities for students to grow through cooperation and encouraged repetitive test preparation and private tutoring. While competition can motivate top students, it can also cause middle- and lower-performing students to give up on learning. Under the high-school credit system, the current five-level relative grading system has also encouraged students to choose subjects that benefit their grades rather than match their interests or career plans.

Yet previous governments, except the Kim Young-sam administration, failed to make the transition because universities needed ways to distinguish applicants. If grade inflation emerges after absolute evaluation, universities could strengthen the national exam, essays, interviews and extracurricular records. Concerns could also grow that universities would use school and regional differences as a de facto ranking system. Competition would simply move into other admissions channels.

The commission plans to establish a system for checking academic achievement at the national level and align national assessment standards with school achievement evaluations. But the editorial says the blueprint remains too vague to judge whether it will work. The success of absolute grading will depend on creating a fair system for universities to assess academic ability. The commission must design not only the transition, but also the system that follows it, so schools can accept the change and its impact can be limited.