[Editorial] Roh’s Meddling in College Admissions

President Roh Moo-hyun instructed the Ministry of Education to draw up countermeasures against some universities’ decision to weigh less on high school academic records in admission. However, this is causing great confusion in this year’s college admissions.

Seoul National University, which recently confirmed that it would follow the admission guidelines announced in April, says it will maintain its original admission policy because changes in the confirmed guidelines will destroy its reputation. It is, however, doubtful whether the state-funded university will not give in to the government’s persistent pressure. Meanwhile, top private universities are trying to postpone the announcement of their admission guidelines to wait and see how things progress, causing growing anxiety among high school students.

This is not the first time for President Roh to intervene in college admissions. President Roh denounced the SNU’s plan to introduce an interdisciplinary essay test in July 2005, saying “It’s awful news.” This prompted the ministry to make an essay-test guideline in a rush. Korea must be the only country where the government meddles in making the guidelines of essay questions. The government’s intervention even resulted in an absurd guideline banning directions written in English in an era of internationalization.

According to the 2005 whitepaper of the presidential education reform committee, President Roh attempted to increase the number of students who fall into the first rank from the top four percent to the top seven percent while introducing the 9-category college scholastic ability ranking system. Despite the rising criticism from universities claiming that giving degrees instead of scores will make it harder to differentiate between applicants, President Roh, who is not an education expert, tried to swell the number of students that would be categorized as the first rank. This is an unthinkable idea which will only sub-standardize top tier universities.

In order to change the admission system, planned changes must be announced three years before actual changes take place in order to create trust and stability in the education system. However, President Roh is meddling in admission guidelines just five month prior to the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT). It is sad to see the Ministry of Education, which showed no objection when the guidelines were announced in April, suddenly change its position because of the president’s single remark. President Roh also acted too impulsively that he has not considered difficulties test takers may face due to sudden changes.

President Roh also said out of the blue that subverting the school grading system is the road to the ranking system. Universities are worried about screening students because the credibility of the ranking system has been undermined since some students categorized in the first rank according to the school grading system are even rated in the seventh rank in the CSAT. Education policies must not be changed on a whim. President Roh must stop distressing senior high school students with an admission system that will disappear once he steps down due to lack of rationality.