The government’s policy to reduce English-language education costs by introducing absolute grading for the national college entrance exam may not be as effective as anticipated, a survey has showed.

The survey released Monday by Yoon’s English School found that more than 90 percent of parents here were not planning to reduce spending on the subject.

Some 82.9 percent of Korean parents said they would not reduce the amount they spent on English education, while another 10.3 percent were planning to spend more.

The survey consulted 514 parents of elementary, middle and high schools. Only 6.8 percent said they would cut down on spending on private classes.

The Education Ministry is planning to apply an absolute grading system to the English section of the state-commissioned college entrance exam ― called Suneung ― starting in 2017. The move is an attempt to relieve academic pressure on students.

The current curved grading system sorts all students in to nine groups based on rank and assigns scores this way. The ministry claims that this has fueled what it called “excessive competition.”

The new system would allow students to get grades based solely on their performances, irrespective of how well other students perform, the officials said.

But the survey showed that Suneung English was the primary concern for just 7.3 percent of parents. The majority ― 51.8 percent ― thought English skills were important regardless of the college exam.

“English is considered crucial (among parents) in several aspects of life, such as getting jobs or promotion, so the absolute grading system seems to have a limited effect on the actual private education market,” said an official from Yoon’s English School.

Widespread distrust in the government’s education policy as a whole was also hinted, as 23.2 percent of the parents said they had to be prepared in case the authorities changed their minds about the absolute grading system. A recent survey by the state-run Korean Educational Development Institute showed that only 8.7 percent of Korean adults had faith in the government’s education policy.

Students’ lack of trust in the public education system also appears to drive them toward private institutes. A recent survey showed that 69 percent of students said school classes were insufficient for trying to improve one’s English skills.

“Korean law doesn’t even allow schools to fire an English teacher who got 415 in TOEIC. Authorities say they will enhance public education but it’s impossible to do so without improving the quality of teachers of the subject,” said an official from local education firm YBM.

“If the public officials can’t improve the quality of education, then maybe they should entrust the task to the private sector.”

By Yoon Min-sik (minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com)