Ministry of Education Maintains Principle of Restricting Midterm Exam Participation for Confirmed Students

On the 16th, students are lining up to receive on-site mobile PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests for COVID-19 response at Inheon Middle School in Gwanak-gu, Seoul. Photo by Jinhyung Kang aymsdream@

[Asia Economy Reporter Seungjin Lee] On the 8th, the Ministry of Education held an emergency inspection support team meeting with metropolitan and provincial offices of education and announced that it would maintain the current policy of restricting COVID-19 positive students from taking midterm exams in middle and high schools and instead awarding recognized scores.

Until now, students isolated due to COVID-19 positivity were classified as subjects prohibited from attending school under the 'School Health Act' and other regulations, and they did not take written exams during the evaluation period but received recognized scores. However, as the number of confirmed cases has recently increased to an unprecedented level, there have been growing calls to provide confirmed students with direct opportunities to take exams.

However, the Ministry of Education explained that after collecting opinions from schools regarding COVID-19 positive students taking midterm exams, it decided to maintain the principle of non-attendance for confirmed students due to concerns about reverse discrimination and difficulties in maintaining fairness.

If confirmed students were allowed to take midterm exams starting this time, it could lead to controversy over reverse discrimination against students who were restricted from attending school and taking exams due to quarantine of cohabitants or testing of cohabitants regardless of their own COVID-19 status, in accordance with quarantine guidelines.

The Ministry of Education also explained that if quarantine guidelines for confirmed cases remain unchanged, allowing confirmed students to go out and take exams would raise equity issues with current 11th and 12th graders who received recognized scores in previous semesters due to confirmation or self-quarantine.

The Ministry of Education conveyed that concerns were raised at schools about the difficulty in maintaining fairness in evaluation because schools nationwide have different conditions, such as separate exam rooms for confirmed and general students, which could affect exam results.

The Ministry of Education explained that there were also concerns about teacher staffing for supervision, fears and resistance from teachers supervising confirmed students, and opposition from non-confirmed students and parents.

The Ministry of Education added that even if confirmed students were allowed to take exams, compulsory attendance would be impossible, and if confirmed students choose whether to take exams and which subjects to take based on the advantages or disadvantages between exam attendance and recognized scores, the fairness of evaluation could be compromised.

Furthermore, in the current situation where the number of confirmed students is increasing, schools are experiencing difficulties in quarantine management, and there were opinions that the strict management required for 3 to 5 days during the evaluation implementation could increase the workload burden on schools.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.