Top Students Who Mastered English
Give More Time for Other Studies
On the morning of December 23, 2020, when the 2021 College Scholastic Ability Test score reports were distributed, examinees are checking their scores at Ewha Girls' High School in Jung-gu, Seoul. Photo by Joint Press Corps
[Asia Economy Reporter Hyunju Lee] Although the absolute evaluation system was introduced in the English section of the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) starting from the 2018 academic year, private education expenses have not decreased, and the gap between regions has widened.
According to data received on the 15th from the Ministry of Education by Kang Min-jung of the Open Democratic Party, the percentage of students who received the top grade (1st grade) in the English section for the 2020 academic year was 9.4% in Seoul. This is an increase of 3.5 percentage points from 5.9% in the 2017 academic year before the introduction of absolute evaluation. In Chungbuk, the increase was only 0.9 percentage points during the same period.
The gap in the percentage of 1st grade English scores among the 17 metropolitan cities and provinces widened more than during the relative evaluation system. In the 2015 academic year, when relative evaluation was used, the gap was 4.7 percentage points; in 2016, 3.5 percentage points; and in 2017, 4.3 percentage points. However, in the first year of absolute evaluation in 2018, the gap widened to 7.4 percentage points, decreased somewhat to 4.3 percentage points in 2019, but increased again to 6.8 percentage points in 2020. The education authorities’ expectation that private education expenses would be reduced by the absolute evaluation of English was also off the mark. The average private education expenditure per high school student nationwide was 284,000 KRW in 2017, rising to 321,000 KRW in 2018 and 365,000 KRW in 2019. In the 2021 academic year CSAT, the proportion of students receiving the top grade in English reached 12.7%, leading to criticism that the discriminative power significantly declined.
The gap that emerged in the English section also had a ripple effect on the Korean language and mathematics sections. In the Korean language section, the maximum regional gap was only 2.8 percentage points in the 2017 academic year CSAT, but it widened to 3.5 percentage points in 2018, 3.6 percentage points in 2019, and 3.8 percentage points in 2020.
For Mathematics Type B, mainly taken by students in the humanities track, the gap increased from 3.2 percentage points in 2017 to 4.7 percentage points in 2018 and 2019, and 4.5 percentage points in 2020. In Mathematics Type B, the top-ranking region was Jeju in 2015, and Seoul and Jeju in 2016, but from 2018 onwards, Seoul consistently ranked first. For Mathematics Type A, the regional gap was relatively similar before and after the introduction of absolute evaluation, but the gap remained large at around 6 percentage points.
Lim Seong-ho, CEO of Jongro Academy Haneul Education, said, "At the top tier, English is completely excluded, and the admission results for that year depend on how well students performed in the more difficult subjects of Korean and Mathematics, making the situation unstable." He added, "The absolute evaluation of English ultimately allows students who have mastered English through early advanced learning in metropolitan areas such as Seoul to have more time to study other subjects, which tends to stabilize the top tier."
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