This article discusses whether an easier SAT can reduce the overheating of private education in South Korea. The main causes of private education are poor public education and entrance examination competition, and an easier SAT could actually increase competition.
In South Korea, the College Entrance Examination Program (SAT) is held every November and is talked about by many people, even if they are not test takers. You can’t even fly on an airplane on SAT day, so the attention is focused on the entire country. The difficulty level of the test is also one of the biggest topics of conversation. The Curriculum Evaluation Center and the government say that as the difficulty of the SAT increases, private education becomes overheated. Therefore, they said they would reduce private education by making the SAT easier. I don’t think an easier SAT has much to do with reducing the overheating of private education.
Before we talk about whether the easier SAT contributes to reducing the overheating of private education, let’s take a look at the research on why students take private education. According to the National Human Rights Commission, 70.7% of students were receiving private education. The main reasons for private education in Korea are “school classes are not enough” (31.9%), “university is important for employment, etc.” (29%), and “students are selected based on their scores in various entrance exams such as special high schools and university entrance exams.
Based on the above statistics, it can be said that ‘school classes are not enough’, which is the most common reason for private education, can be solved to a certain extent without additional private study by implementing an easy SAT. However, if a student does not have a sufficient understanding of the subject concepts due to insufficient schooling, they will seek private tutoring to fill in the gaps, because the SAT is a relative assessment, not an absolute one. The easier the SAT is, the smaller the gap between scores will be, so you need to be sure that your understanding of the content is spot-on in order to get a good score. And since, quite literally, the number one reason for private tutoring is “not enough schooling,” the most effective way to reduce private tutoring is to make sure there is enough schooling.
The next two reasons, “Because the university you went to is important for employment, etc.” (29%) and “Because students are selected based on their scores in various entrance exams such as special high schools and university entrance exams,” are inherently competitive in nature. However, if the SAT is made easier, the gap between students will be denser. However, it can be said that competition is intensified because only a few people get what they want.
Summarizing the above statistics, we can say that the fundamental reasons for private education are poor public education and entrance examination competition. Therefore, in order to reduce private education, we must first strengthen public education and find ways to reduce entrance examination competition. Let’s discuss whether an easier SAT will reduce competition.
The arguments in favor of an easier SAT are as follows. First, it will encourage more people to believe that they can do well in school without out-of-school tutoring. Second, it will prevent high-performing students from becoming overzealous in their quest for a high score, leading to unrestricted competition and increased interest in holistic activities outside of academics. In addition, it is said that lower-performing students will also be able to score a certain amount of points, which will boost their confidence.
First, the government argues that the easy SAT reduces the academic burden because it encourages students to study less, often drastically reducing the amount of material they would have learned in their previous curriculum. As a result, the gap in SAT scores between regions with more private tutoring and those without has actually decreased, according to the Ministry of Education. However, according to the National Commission for Human Rights, the paradox is that since the easier SAT, the percentage of students entering top universities has increased in areas with more private tutoring, because the number of regular entrance exams has decreased and students have to prepare for different entrance exams for each university. Each university has 100 pages of admissions materials, and the details of each admissions process are different. As a result, admissions consulting firms are paid handsomely to provide students and parents with this information. Students who have access to this information have an advantage in the entrance examination, making it more difficult for students without private education and worsening the situation.
Second, if the government’s idea of an easy SAT is to be valid, the SAT should be an absolute test, not a relative test. This is because in an absolute assessment, students who have achieved a certain level of learning may not be focused on “scoring points”. However, since the SAT is a relative test, an easy SAT can be won or lost by a single question, which pushes students into a race to the bottom where they can’t afford to miss a single question.
Finally, it is said that an easier SAT will give students with lower scores more confidence. But as we’ve already discussed, the SAT is a relative assessment. Contrary to the government’s claims, students who take the SAT will receive a percentile score, a scaled score, and a standardized score for each subject. In other words, the score report does not include the raw score, and the three score tables above are calculated relative to other students. It’s clear that reducing the raw score gap is not the same as building confidence.
As long as the SAT is a relative assessment, the “lining up” property is inherent in it. Therefore, it is inherently inconsistent to try to eliminate this property: an easier SAT is not right because it loses the ability to discriminate between top students, and a harder SAT is problematic because it loses the ability to discriminate between bottom students. Therefore, it’s best not to skew the SAT’s difficulty in either direction. In addition, the reason why private education is overheated is because public education is not doing its job, as shown in the above statistics, and it is necessary to strengthen public education that can provide education according to each individual’s preferences in a place called a school where many students gather, rather than blaming the cause of the problem.
