College students` academic abilities decline (1)

``Is there anyone who still cannot understand?``

Last week, instructor Choi, 30, asked the students after a repetitive explanation during a math and practice class as general studies for freshmen at Seoul National University`s engineering college. Of the 50 students in the class, 12 raised their hands. The instructor lamented, saying that he had to spend more than an hour to explain two basic math problems.

Most students complained that the class is progressing too fast to understand. On the other hand, Lee, 26, who returned to college after staying out of school for a while, said that he was surprised to see that freshmen find the problems difficult, although they are much easier than before.

In early March, instructor Kim, 34, asked a freshman during the first basic Chinese character class to write down one through 10 in Chinese characters. The student wrote from one to five on the blackboard and then failed to write six and returned to his seat. The student replied that he neither wrote Chinese characters often nor felt the need to write them.

The situation is more or less the same at Hongik University and Inha University, where the writing instructor also teaches.

It is an era of college students with low scholarship. That`s something that instructors are realizing at colleges in Korea.

Students are fearful of math:

Physics Professor Oh Se-Jung of Seoul National University was stunned while grading a physical dynamics test for sophomores last year. He offered rather easy problems so that the average score would be 40-50 points, considering the poor scholarship of students. But the actual score was less than 30 points on an average.

Professor Oh had talks with students. The students said unanimously that they hardly can keep up with the class because they don`t know the basic concepts and theories, although they studied hard since high school days.

In April last year, Seoul National University has conducted a survey of students taking the functional calculus. Of the 330 students surveyed, 102 answered that they find it difficult to keep up with the class. Also, 92 students replied that there was no connection between what they learned at high school and what they are learning at college.

The situation is even worse in other colleges:

A university in South Choongchung Province tested students during the first math class of general studies with simple problems such as ``What is sin 60?`` or ``Differentiate X2.`` They are easy problems that even high school students can solve. But the average score was 30 points.

At a university in Incheon, none of eight enrollees in the math department answered the problem ``How to differentiate sin X?``

English is more or less the same:

A class of 1998 student in the liberal arts college of Seoul National University got an F repeatedly and then eventually quit. He told a professor that he found it too difficult to read books written in English, as English education has changed to focus more on spoken English. As an apparent result, students` reading capability has decreased substantially.

``Many graduate students are struggling to read textbooks in English, although students in the past easily read them,`` Social studies Professor Lee Jae-Yul of Seoul National University said.

For this reason, English books are disappearing on a gradual basis from classrooms.

Song Ki-Ho, professor of Korean history at Seoul National University, said that many students mentioned ``Nambul,`` a comic book authored by Lee Hyun-Sae, when asked what was the most impressive book that they ever had read. ``How can they study cultural science without reading books?`` Song lamented.

Textbooks levels decline

The level of university textbooks also is deteriorating. Now juniors learn what sophomores did in the past, seniors learn what juniors did, while graduate students learn what seniors did.

Sookmyung Women`s University has been using physics textbooks without differential and integral calculus for the past four years, giving basic concept-oriented lectures to students. Seoul National University adopted three years ago a textbook of ``Science of Differential and Integral Calculus,`` from which differential and integral calculus of a high class were deleted.

The textbook of ``Basic Science of Differential and Integral Calculus`` that debuted this year contains the contents of high school level.

The situation of English textbooks is similar. Seoul National University adopted an English textbook for its freshmen liberal arts course three years ago, and it contains less comprehension sentences and vocabularies of high level. The previous textbooks are now used in the high-level English classes.

Professors complain that unless the level of textbooks is lowered, students won`t attend class, forcing it to close.

Differentiated class levels proliferate:

Differentiated class levels, the past practice at high schools, are common these days at universities. The Physics Department of Sungkyunkwan University opened three classes of A, B, and C for the lecture of the general physics as a cultural subject. Students are allowed to make a choice of the three according to their academic ability.

The Math Department of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) also has divided science classes differentially and integral calculus into three levels, according to the academic ability of students.

``The level of students comes in all sorts and kinds,`` Professor Han Sang-Keun of the Math Department at KIST said. ``And the level of lectures students demand varies according to their majors.``

Graduate schools shaken, too:

Last year, the Physics Department at SNU failed to fill the quota of 40 for its graduate school course and picked only 30 because the number of applicants decreased, but many of them were suspected to lack basic knowledge of physics. Similar phenomena have taken place at the graduate schools of Yonsei, Sungkyunkwan and Pohang University of Science and Technology.

``The lowering academic ability of graduate school students is a serious problem that will shake the root of the overall academic research, including the basic science,`` Professor Hong Seung-Woo of Sungkyunkwan University said.

Lowering academic ability and national competitiveness:

Kumho Group gave a Chinese letter examination to 500 applicants for interview text. The result was shocking, as the average scores were below 50 points out of the possible 100.

``Our employees receive more than 80 points on average right now,`` a group official said. ``Unless appropriate measures are prepared soon against the deteriorating academic ability of collegians, it will be difficult for enterprises to secure superior people.``

Kim Kyoung-Dal dal@donga.com