Kim Seong-kon in “One exam decides your future” wrote an interesting piece in this paper last Wednesday (Dec. 21). Whilst sympathetic to the view of the writer, there was a hint that creative education was somehow linked to the “foreign” issue and that, yet again, Koreans are having to adapt to the external whims of foreigners.

I would like to add a few reflections. On meeting President Obama earlier last month, President Lee in classic Korean style “complained” that the problem with Koreans is that they are too obsessed with their childrens’ education.

However the Pisa League rankings are not reflected in the Korean higher education system. Many theories are put forward. Firstly, that high school rankings success mirrors a skewed resource focus and standardization of education on maths and science. However, the rankings do not tell the whole story about the comparative use of resources in other countries, the priorities of education policy and curriculum in other countries, as well as issues of economic accessibility to the best hagwon and so forth.

Secondly, in global Korea, accessing information is clearly not an issue but distinguishing information from knowledge is. Students often regurgitate a professor’s lecture notes in an attempt to please the professor rather than on “learning how to learn.” In the U.K., lecturers often deliberately put controversial ideas into lecture notes to check that students aren’t simply “parroting”them, the ultimate insult. The etymology of the term “education” means to “draw out” rather than to copy or to imitate.

There is one issue that has been raised recently. This is the rather simple idea of spreading tests over a time period. This is often recognized as “weak” or “too foreign” as compared to the make or break nine hour test. Students, it is reasoned, need to be tested under pressure.

Quite so, but it is not a matter of either/or. Students in schools and universities in the West often have a set of 2-3 hour daily exams for up to two weeks, often twice a year. Rather than being “soft” on education this form of testing actually makes students better equipped for the workplace and their future studies. Students who have not done so well in the first round of tests (and know it) have to put that issue to one side and maturely do better in the next exam, otherwise a domino of failure or poor marks ensues.

This is a much tougher test of a student’s ability, character and intellectual confidence. In this sense, the exams also become a test against one’s self and not a pointless test with and against others. Testing and competing against one’s self is a tougher call in any case, but the results are more productive for the individual and for society. 

By Iain Watson

Iain Watson is an assistant professor of the Department of International Development and Cooperation, GSIS, Ajou University. ― Ed.