Admissions Fairness

[Anchor Lead]

What's known as a comprehensive college admissions system is increasingly being adopted by universities but its ambiguous standards continue to raise concerns about fairness. The Education Ministry has launched efforts to improve the system while the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education has also proposed ways of improvement.

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School records, college entrance exams, hobby activities, reading and volunteer work. High school students preparing for the comprehensive college admissions scheme are so busy tackling all these areas.

[Soundbite] (Parent of High School Student) : "How far should hobby activities go? Also, some high schools are generous in giving away merits and prizes. There are many problems."

But the standards required by universities are ambiguous and they're prone to be affected by external factors. There's also concern the comprehensive admissions system is more advantageous to students attending autonomous private high schools or special purpose high schools. A survey shows that 15 universities in capital Seoul select 43% of new students through this system. The percentage is nearly double the national average.

[Soundbite] Cho Hee-yeon(Superintendent, Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education) : "The key concern is that universities are overly subjective when applying the comprehensive admissions rule."

The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education has meanwhile proposed the introduction of so-called public admissions officers that include figures from outside the school. The office has also suggested that comprehensive admissions, school records and the CSAT or the college entrance exam should be reflected in the same ratio of 1:1:1. It also proposed scrapping teacher recommendation letters and a minimum CSAT score requirement.

[Soundbite] Lee Jae-jin(Director of Think Tank on University Affairs) : "The measures can help students prepare not solely for comprehensive admissions but other options as well, creating less social controversy."

But there are critics to the proposed measures who say the proposals can further lower academic performance and infringe on the autonomy of universities. A more thorough examination is therefore necessary.