The college entrance reform plan is too early to be announced next March

South Korea's National Education Committee and the Ministry of Education have announced plans to significantly reform the college entrance system. The proposed changes include introducing essay and 논술 (long-form essay) components into both the college scholastic ability test (CSAT) and internal high school assessments, alongside a transition to an absolute grading system. This overhaul aims to address perceived shortcomings of the current multiple-choice format.

President Yoon Suk-yeol, while acknowledging the need for improvement over the current objective testing methods, has expressed reservations. He urged a cautious approach, citing concerns about the potential for new forms of private tutoring (사교육) and the possibility of systemic confusion arising from such a substantial shift.

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The President agreed with the need to improve the problems of objective evaluation methods such as 5-choice multiple choice, but ordered a cautious approach, mentioning the possibility of inducing new private education and the possibility of confusion in the system.

The author of the opinion piece expresses strong reservations about the proposed timeline. The plan is to finalize these reforms by March of the following year, following a period of public deliberation. This compressed schedule, for a reform impacting the entire higher education admission process, is criticized as unprecedentedly short in South Korea's educational policy history. The author draws parallels to the frequent and disruptive entrance exam changes of the 1970s and 1980s.

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However, announcing a new college entrance reform plan, including evaluation methods and notation for internal high school grades and the CSAT, in March next year, just over a year after the National Education Committee's University Entrance System Special Committee was launched, is an announcement of a college entrance reform plan in an extremely short period, unprecedented in Korean educational policy history.

Highlighting the complexity of educational reforms, the author notes that even revising the national curriculum typically takes two to three years. A reform as impactful as the college entrance system, they argue, requires significantly more research, development, and preparation time. The piece also recalls past issues, such as grade inflation when internal high school grades shifted entirely to absolute grading, leading universities to de-emphasize them. The practical challenges of grading potentially hundreds of thousands of essays and 논술 responses for the CSAT are also questioned, raising doubts about objectivity, fairness, and reliability within the proposed timeframe.

Given the magnitude of the proposed changes, the author suggests that the National Education Committee and Ministry of Education should present their findings as interim reports until late 2029, aligning the final announcement with the next national curriculum revision. This would allow for more thorough research, public consensus building, and a smoother transition, avoiding the potential chaos of a rushed implementation.

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How much time will it take to grade essay and 논술 type questions? Can objectivity, fairness, reliability, and validity be secured even if humans conduct a second check after the first artificial intelligence grading?