Lee Ju-ho: "Students Taking the Suneung Exam Have No Problems If They Prepare as They Are Now"

Minister of Education Lee Ju-ho KBS Radio Interview
"Killer questions are about fairness, not about a difficult exam"

Lee Ju-ho, Deputy Prime Minister for Social Affairs and Minister of Education, appeared on KBS Radio's 'Choi Kyung-young's Strongest Current Affairs' on the 28th and said, "The so-called killer questions are not about easy CSAT (College Scholastic Ability Test) or difficult CSAT, but about fairness, and they are questions that students who have studied hard within the public education curriculum find difficult to solve. Even if the difficulty level is slightly lower, questions should not be twisted or include content not covered in the curriculum."

In particular, the Deputy Prime Minister emphasized, "There is an issue of how to secure discrimination, but even if questions are created within public education, discrimination can be sufficiently secured. Especially to students and parents preparing for this year's CSAT, I want to reiterate that if you prepare thoroughly within public education as you are doing now, there will be no problem at all."

Regarding the 22 killer questions in Korean, English, and Math recently announced by the Ministry of Education, some of which have a correct answer rate in the 30% range, he explained, "If it favors students who mechanically solve problems by learning problem-solving techniques at private academies or by repetitive practice, then that is not educational. We have focused on selecting such questions."

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education Lee Ju-ho is responding to lawmakers' questions at the Education Committee plenary session held at the National Assembly on the 27th. Photo by Hyunmin Kim kimhyun81@

Regarding the criticism that excluding killer questions will not lead to a reduction in private education expenses, he explained, "The fundamental reason why children flock to private education is especially the hierarchical structure of universities. There are many fundamental remedies related to the educational reforms promoted by the Yoon Seok-yeol administration."

He said, "In the education reform plan, there is the 'Glocal University 30' initiative, which aims to create 30 world-class universities among corporate universities, and if selected, each will receive 100 billion won in support. Since about 10 universities in the metropolitan area are already at a world-class level, if about 30 world-class universities emerge in the regions as well, I believe that the overheated problems of college entrance exams will be greatly alleviated."

Regarding concerns that confusion among students and parents is increasing as changes in CSAT difficulty are mentioned with the CSAT just five months away, he said, "We are also concerned about the parts that parents are anxious about, but when we actually check, there are only one or two killer questions per subject. In fact, removing them selectively does not cause major confusion."

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