Yoon's 'Fair CSAT Theory' Remarks Cause Confusion Amid Increasingly Unpredictable CSAT

Concerns of Students and Parents Before Suneung Over Yoon's Remarks
'Suneung Creator' "Question Level Selection Is the Examiner's Authority"

With the 2024 College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) just five months away, students and parents are experiencing confusion due to President Yoon Seok-yeol's remarks related to the exam.

Earlier, on the 15th, Lee Ju-ho, Deputy Prime Minister for Social Affairs and Minister of Education, stated that President Yoon "ordered innovations in education such as infant care, Korean language education, and reduction of private education expenses," and added that "he said questions not covered in the public education curriculum should be excluded from the CSAT."

Following this, as speculation about an 'easy CSAT' arose causing confusion, the Blue House clarified on the 16th that "President Yoon did not talk about an 'easy CSAT' or a 'difficult CSAT,'" explaining that the intention was to maintain discrimination power while excluding areas not covered in the public education curriculum from the CSAT.

Despite this explanation from the Blue House, controversy continues. Park Do-soon, emeritus professor of education at Korea University and the first president of the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation, known as the 'creator of the CSAT,' expressed doubt, saying, "It is a principle to set questions according to the content and level of the curriculum, so there is no problem with the general principle, but I do not quite understand why such remarks were suddenly made."

[Image source=Yonhap News]

On the 19th, on KBS Radio's 'Choi Kyung-young's Strong Current Affairs,' he explained, "In fact, whether to set a certain level of non-literary questions or not falls under the authority of the examiners," adding, "If the examiner is excellent, it is more accurate to ask about different content." He further said, "To achieve certain goals in the curriculum, materials other than textbooks are also considered textbooks as part of achieving the educational process," and "Using other materials is not a big problem."

Professor Park also said, "For example, to assess thinking skills, although it is in the Korean language section, questions could be asked using music content," adding, "The intention is not to have students memorize and answer what is there, but to judge what kind of thinking skills the person has through that. Therefore, if there is a discussion about why a question was set that way, it should be reviewed by experts, and if there is a problem, it should be addressed then."

Professor Park particularly pointed out that since the fundamental cause is social competition, it is difficult to solve the problem of overheated private education without addressing this. He said, "Unless the overall social system changes first, the private education problem cannot be simply solved by exams or similar measures," and criticized, "Especially, the idea that changing the CSAT will prevent private education from arising is nonsense."

The photo is not related to the specific content of the article. Photo by Yonhap News.

Admissions expert Kim Ho-chang also criticized President Yoon's remarks, calling it "a representative case of politics interfering wrongly in education," and pointed out that lowering the difficulty of the CSAT does not reduce private education expenses. On the YouTube channel 'Kim Eo-jun's Humility is Difficult News Factory,' he said, "In 2010 and 2011, EBS introduced a linkage rate. The intention was to make the CSAT easier by increasing the linkage rate," but "statistically, private education expenses did not decrease."

So-called 'top instructors,' representing the private education sector, also responded that it has become difficult to predict the difficulty of the CSAT. Hyun Woo-jin, a CSAT math instructor, said on his social media on the 16th, "Currently, no subject in Korean, Math, English, or Social Studies is easy, and whether it is easy or difficult, there is confusion, so I hope for clear guidance."

Social Studies instructor Lee Da-ji also said, "It is even more uncertain what the September mock exam and the CSAT will be like."

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