College Entrance Exam Scores to Be Disclosed

College entrance exam scores by province, city, county and district will be disclosed for the first time since 1994, when the College Scholastic Aptitude Test was introduced.

Critics warn that analysis of the scores will emphasize differences in academic achievement by region and district.

The Education, Science and Technology Ministry announced yesterday that it considered whether disclosure of the scores as requested by ruling Grand National Party lawmaker Cho Jeon-hyuk was correct.

The ministry concluded that the scores could be disclosed as long as they are investigated only by lawmakers.

The college exam scores of students will be disclosed in 16 cities and provinces, and 232 cities, counties and districts conducted from 2005 to this year to lawmakers. Scores by school will remain confidential, however, to prevent the data from being used to grade schools.

The ministry plans to allow lawmakers to inspect the data in which the names of schools and personal student information are deleted if they visit the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation.

Lawmakers cannot copy or save the data or take it out but they can carry out processed or analyzed information.

The raw scores will contain all details reported to each student, including standard scores, grades and percentile.

The ministry said, “Lawmakers need to present a written pledge to use the data only for research and not to disclose data that can be used to rank schools or regions. Scores of each school will be never disclosed and schools will never be graded.”

Cho said, “I will look up the raw scores late this month when the institute is ready to disclose the data. Though some fear that the data might be released or schools might be graded, these kinds of events will never happen.”

foryou@donga.com