Can South Korea’s easy SAT really stop private education overheating?

This article discusses whether an easier SAT can reduce the overheating of private education in South Korea. The main causes of private education are poor public education and entrance examination competition, and an easier SAT could actually increase competition.

 

In South Korea, the College Aptitude Test (SAT) is held every November and is talked about by many people, even if they are not test takers. You can’t even fly on the day of the test, so the attention is focused on the entire country. The difficulty level of the test is also one of the biggest topics of conversation. The Curriculum Evaluation Service and the government say that as the difficulty level of the SAT increases, private education becomes overheated. Therefore, they say they will reduce private education by making the SAT easier. I don’t think an easier SAT has much to do with reducing the overheating of private education.
Before we talk about whether the easier SAT contributes to reducing the overheating of private education, let’s take a look at the research on why students take private education. According to the National Human Rights Commission, 70.7 per cent of students were receiving private education. The main reasons for private education in Korea are “school classes are not enough” (31.9%), “the university from which you graduated is important for employment, etc.” (29%), and “students are selected based on their scores in various entrance examinations such as special high schools and university entrance examinations.
Based on the above statistics, it can be said that ‘school classes are not enough’, which is the most common reason for private education, can be solved to a certain extent without additional private study by implementing an easy SAT. However, if a student does not have a sufficient understanding of the subject concepts due to insufficient schooling, they will seek private tuition to fill in the gaps, because the SAT is a relative assessment, not an absolute assessment. The easier the SAT, the smaller the gap between scores, so your understanding of the content needs to be spot-on in order to get a good score. And since, quite literally, the number one reason for private tuition is “not enough schooling”, the most effective way to reduce private tuition is to make sure there is enough schooling.
The next two reasons, “because the university you went to is important for employment, etc.” (29%) and “because students are selected based on their scores in various entrance exams such as special high schools and university entrance exams,” are inherently competitive in nature. However, if the SAT is made easier, the gap between students will be denser. However, it can be said that competition is intensified because only a few people get what they want.
To sum up the above statistics, we can say that the fundamental reasons for private education are poor public education and entrance examination competition. Therefore, in order to reduce private education, we must first strengthen public education and find ways to reduce entrance examination competition. Let’s discuss whether an easier SAT will reduce competition.
The arguments in favour of an easier SAT are as follows. First, it will encourage more people to believe that they can do well in school without out-of-school tutoring. Secondly, it will prevent top students from becoming overzealous about scoring and competing unrestrictedly, and will increase their interest in holistic activities outside of academics. In addition, it is said that lower-performing students will be able to gain a certain amount of points, which will boost their confidence.
Firstly, the government argues that easy SATs reduce the academic burden by encouraging students to study less, often drastically reducing the amount of material that was previously taught in the curriculum. As a result, according to the ministry, the gap in SAT scores between regions with high levels of private tutoring and those without has actually decreased. However, according to the National Commission for Human Rights, paradoxically, since the easier SAT, the percentage of students entering top universities has increased in areas where private tutoring is more prevalent, because the number of regular entrance exams has decreased and students have to prepare for different entrance exams for each university. Each university has 100 pages of admissions materials, and the details of each admissions process are different. As a result, admissions consulting firms are paid handsomely to provide students and parents with this information. Students who have access to this information have an advantage in the entrance examination, making it more difficult for students without private education and worsening the situation.
Secondly, if the government’s idea of an easy SAT is to be valid, the SAT should be an absolute test, not a relative test. This is because in an absolute assessment, students who have achieved a certain level of learning may not be focused on ‘scoring points’. However, because the SAT is a relative test, an easy SAT can be won or lost by a single question, which pushes students further into the race to “score points” where they can’t afford to miss a single question.
Finally, it is argued that the easier SAT gives students with lower scores more confidence. But as we’ve already discussed, the SAT is a relative assessment. Contrary to the government’s claims, students who take the SATs will receive a percentile score, a scale score, and a standardised score for each subject. In other words, the score report does not include the raw score, but rather a calculated score that is relative to other students. It’s clear that reducing the raw score difference is not the same as building confidence.
As long as the SAT is a relative assessment, the “lining up” property is inherent in it. Therefore, it is inherently inconsistent to try to eliminate this property: an easier SAT is not right because it loses the ability to discriminate between top students, and a harder SAT is problematic because it loses the ability to discriminate between bottom students. Therefore, it’s best not to skew the SAT in either direction. In addition, the reason why private education is overheated is because public education is not doing its job as shown in the above statistics, and it is necessary to strengthen public education that can provide education according to each individual’s preferences in a place where many students gather in a school rather than blaming the cause of the problem.