Fair Amount of NAAT Questions from EBS Lectures

The Korean government decided in November to provide a fair amount of questions on the 2005 National Academic Aptitude Test (NAAT) from lectures for the NAAT from the Educational Broadcasting System (EBS), as of April 1.

It was known on March 7th that the Curriculum Vitae of Minister and Education & Human Resources Development Minister Ahn Byung-young ordered the connection of EBS lectures and NAAT questions after meeting with the head of the Korea Institute of Curriculum and Evaluation (KICE), Chung Kang-chung, and the president of EBS, Ko Seok-man on 4th.

An official of the Ministry of Education & Human Resources Development (MEHRD) said that day, “Mr. Ahn asked for the KICE and EBS to make as much effort as possible so that students should not have any difficulty solving questions.”

This is the first time that the government directly ordered relevant organizations to base a substantial quantity of NAAT questions this year on EBS lectures. Accordingly, students who are preparing for the NAAT seem to achieve higher scores if they actively use EBS lectures.

Once Ahn roughly outlined “As the KICE, in which the NAAT is given, participated in EBS lectures, studying lectures actively will help to prepare for the exam,” announcing a “2.17 Policy of Reducing Private Tutoring Cost” last month. Ahn confirmed again his plan in a meeting on March 4 that the KICE and EBS will cooperate closely to be able to broadcast EBS lectures for the NAAT beginning April 1 without any failure, and the MEHRD supported the plan positively.

So while the MEHRD offers high-quality lectures by attracting competent teachers to raise the quality of EBS lectures, it supplies as well as expands equipment related to the access of satellite broadcasting communications and the Internet.

In connection with this, members of Evaluation Committee from EBS and working-level officials of the MEHRD held a meeting recently and settled details such as changing old PCs and TVs in schools, increasing EBS Internet speed four times more (from 512KB to 2MB) and to supply free satellite receivers to about ten thousand low-income households, which have third grade high school students in remote places.

The MEHRD and the EBS are planning to examine any inadequacies after having experimental broadcasting through the Internet and satellite broadcasting around the 20th.

The head of the International Cooperation and Information Technology Bureau Park Kyung-jae, of the MEHRD said, “We secured a budget of about 20b won (around $17m) that is required to expand basic equipment such as Internet servers.”

The EBS plans to increase the number of persons who can access at the same time, from fifteen thousands now to around one hundred thousand, by expanding Internet servers using this budget.

However, considering that the number of students expected to take the NAAT is about six hundred thousand, there could be setbacks like downed servers when hundreds of thousands of students crowd on around April 1.