"Deliberate Exaggeration of Achievements... A Serious Deception of Residents"
Provincial Office of Education: "There Was a Data Entry Error, but No Manipulation"
Organizations related to the Jeonnam branch of the Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union (KTU) have strongly objected to the Jeonnam Provincial Office of Education's announcement of CSAT score statistics, denouncing it as "manipulation" and "distortion." In response, the Jeonnam Provincial Office of Education has directly refuted these claims, calling them "excessive," intensifying the dispute between the two sides.
On the morning of June 26, seven organizations, including the Jeonnam branch of the KTU, Jeonnam Education Council, Jeonnam branch of the Parents for True Education, and Jeonnam Education Research Institute, held a joint press conference in front of the Jeonnam Provincial Office of Education. They criticized, "The press release on CSAT scores distributed by the provincial education office on June 9 was based on manipulated statistics," adding, "This is a deceptive act intended to deliberately exaggerate educational achievements."
Seven organizations, including the Jeonnam branch of the Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union (KTU), held a press conference claiming that the provincial education office deliberately inflated the CSAT scores. Photo by Jeonnam branch of the Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union (KTU)
They argued, "The CSAT results promoted by the Jeonnam Provincial Office of Education as 'a decrease in low performers and an increase in high performers' are essentially based on distorted figures," and insisted, "This is not a simple administrative mistake but an organized manipulation of statistics targeting the residents of the province."
In particular, these organizations demanded that the provincial education office: officially acknowledge and apologize for distorting CSAT statistics; stop promoting exaggerated achievements and disclose its educational philosophy; and apologize for and take follow-up measures regarding the text messages sent based on distorted statistics. They emphasized, "Jeonnam education must return to the essence of education, which is 'people and growth.'"
In response, the Jeonnam Provincial Office of Education issued a statement on the same day, rebutting, "It is not true that some organizations used the term 'manipulation,' and they have politically overinterpreted a simple error that occurred during the statistical input process."
The provincial education office explained, "The statistics related to the proportion of low grades (grades 7 to 9) in Korean and mathematics for the 2021 academic year contained errors that occurred during the manual entry of source data provided by the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation." They added, "Immediately after recognizing the error, we corrected the figures through revised materials on June 18 and disclosed them transparently."
They continued, "This analysis of the scores was not an exaggerated promotion of achievements, but an objective sharing of changes in students' academic performance and teachers' efforts." They stressed, "All standard scores and grade ratios were based on official data provided by the evaluation institute, not arbitrarily calculated by the provincial education office."
They further stated, "Our intention was not to encourage ranking, but to explain the ongoing trend of improvement since 2021. CSAT scores are inevitably used as basic data for career and academic guidance."
They added, "There was no intention to exaggerate policy achievements, and we have already disclosed the limitations of interpretation ourselves. Going forward, we will focus more on mid- to long-term trends rather than short-term figures to strengthen academic guidance."
The provincial education office announced that it would establish a dual verification system for CSAT statistics together with the Career and Academic Research Association, the Council of Academic Affairs Directors, and the Counseling Teachers Group, and expand the academic consulting structure involving both teachers and students.
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