Would they tell their own children just to read?

Kim Sung-tak

The author is an editorial writer at the JoongAng Ilbo. 

“Does daegwanjeol mean a ‘large joint’ — ‘dae’ meaning ‘large’ and ‘gwanjeol’ meaning ‘joint’ — or a ‘temple in Daegwan,’ with ‘jeol’ meaning ‘temple’?”

I thought of this after hearing that Cha Jeong-in, the chair of the National Education Commission, had reported to the president that the commission was considering adding short-answer and essay questions to the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT). The Dong-A Ilbo reported that a Korean-language teacher at a high school in South Gyeongsang was stunned when students offered those guesses after being asked what daegwanjeol, an adverb meaning “on earth” or “what in the world,” meant.

How limited has high school students’ vocabulary become? If many lack basic vocabulary, their comprehension and academic performance will inevitably suffer not only in Korean but in other subjects as well.

Declining literacy has been blamed partly on students reading fewer books while consuming more short-form videos. Weaker Chinese-character education also leaves many struggling with Sino-Korean vocabulary; when encountering unfamiliar words, older generations could often find context clues through their Chinese-character roots.

Declining literacy likely lies behind the commission’s interest in written-response questions. Multiple-choice tests do little to encourage philosophical or humanistic thinking and potentially weaken incentives for deeper scientific inquiry. Deteriorating communication skills may even contribute to social and political conflict.

But adding essay questions to the CSAT would have far-reaching consequences. In Korea, families can spend more than a decade preparing for admission to a particular university and department. Some children attend English kindergartens, then cram schools for reading, math and science. Many middle schoolers study high school material early, and high schoolers practically live at cram schools to prepare for exams.

What happens if university admissions suddenly require written answers? Private institutes will create new courses, and anxious families will line up despite the cost.

After parents warned that the proposal would only create another form of private tutoring, Cha said that the “technical elements of the test” could be learned in public schools and that students would only need to “read widely.” Reading helps with writing, but that response sounds idealistic when measured against the realities of Korean admissions.

The commission has not released sample questions, but they would be subjective-response items. Currently, only CSAT’s math section has nine such questions. Average Korean and English scores hover around 60 points, but math averages in the 30s. The phrase “descriptive subjective-response question” itself burdens test-takers.

Students and parents will naturally fear being disadvantaged without meticulous preparation. The CSAT uses relative rankings. Even if written answers are graded with AI, would families really avoid sending their children to academies that promise subject-specific background knowledge and techniques for crafting high-scoring responses?

Changes to admissions policy that ignore reality have repeatedly spawned new private education markets. The holistic admissions track, for example, evaluates various elements of a student’s school record. Students are expected to demonstrate their research ability and aptitude through presentations, reports and school activities.

But expensive consultants advise students on research topics, methodology and even project content for school records. Teachers rarely provide comparable help. Most records therefore look similar, while those prepared with professional assistance often stand out in topic selection, research design and results.

Would universities penalize such students? One professor with admissions experience said that he had seen many records that appeared to involve outside help but could not disadvantage applicants because he could not rule out the possibility that the student was exceptional. That helps explain why private education persists as admissions rules change.

Can children who do not know what daegwanjeol means or whose families cannot afford private tutoring compete with students trained at academies to write subjective answers?

If the children or grandchildren of commission members were preparing for university, would they truly tell them there was no need for an academy and that reading books was enough? Could they convincingly explain why one essay received a high score and another a low one? Or would AI provide that answer too?

Unless universities are given autonomy to select students through their own systems, every admissions change must be scrutinized for unintended consequences. College admissions are not an ideal. They are reality.