More School Choices for Students

The choice of high school in a high school equalization zone will be widened starting for second graders of middle schools at the earliest. Also, the “intensive courses by school” system will be introduced in which each high school can decide on the subjects that they will focus their educational efforts on so that middle school students can use this information in their decision-making process for choosing a high school.

The Ministry of Education and Human Resources announced on May 26 its second-step policies for the “2.17 Private Education Reduction Policies” with its main content of “High School First Choice/Second Drawing System” in order to complement the high school equalization system in a way of strengthening the right of choice for middle school students.

The ministry decided to further extend the first choice/second drawing system which is already implemented in several cities and provinces. The ministry is currently discussing the extension of the rate of entering students under the system in the high school entrance quota from the current 40 to 60 percent to 60 to 80 percent

However, the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education is opposed to the first choice/second drawing system, which draws attention for its later outcome.

The ministry will also suggest the extension of the number of choices from current choices of three high schools to five that one student can choose, and the educational offices in city governments and provinces to use the GIS to find the nearest school for students who were not allocated to their choice of schools.

The “Common School Zone System” is a system in which middle school students can choose high schools based on wherever they live.

The ministry is introducing the system in areas like Gwangju and promoting the policy to extend its scope in Seoul, where the system was already in practice.

In addition, “Intensive Courses by School” policy, already in practice in several select areas, will further extend to more city and province governments and will support participating high schools financially and in its administration.

“Since we have to notice the public of the high school recruiting system at least 10 months in advance, the policies will be in effect starting from the 2006 school year,” said the ministry. “The methods for extending high school choices will vary according to actual circumstances in each city or province.”

The second-step policies also induce the establishment of various forms of schools and modification of existing schools to their characteristics, and also to increase autonomous schools. Whether or not independent private schools will be increased depends on the case study results coming out next year.

The policies discourage schools from evaluating the contents of materials not covered in their classes. Instead, it encourages them with further instructions to compensate with assignments with which students can study by themselves.

Also, the textbooks of major subjects such as Korean, English, Math, Social Studies, Science, and others will be reedited so that the students can understand them without reading any additional reference books.

The ministry also plans to make several announcements in August in regard to plans to close down scholastic ability tests, normalizing plans for the operation of specialized high schools, improvement plans in college entrance policies from 2008, improvement plans in performance evaluation methods, and others.

Seong-Chul Hong sungchul@donga.com