Some of the first and second year middle school students scheduled to take the “nationwide scholastic achievement assessment test,” or ilje gosa, on Tuesday went on field trips instead. Education officials say they are going to issue teachers who permitted students to go on field trips “heavy penalties” (jungjinggye), which usually means firing.
A group called the “Seoul Citizens Opposed to the Nationwide Scholastic Achievement Assessment Test” accompanied roughly 70 students to Deoksu Palace in downtown Seoul. Approximately twenty of the students were middle schoolers scheduled to take the ilje gosa.
Twenty-four students in the Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province school districts who chose not to take the test went to the historic city of Gyeongju instead, where they toured the National Gyeongju Museum.
In North Jeolla Province, approximately 20 students spent the day at the Daejeon Expo Park. The provincial civic group that led the field trip issued a statement saying the test “is an inhumane education policy that ranks students and schools.”
Three schools in North Jeolla refused to administer the test, choosing instead to hold regular classes. One of the schools, Jangsu Middle School, called a meeting of its school board to debate whether or not to participate in the exam, and recently informed the North Jeolla Office of Education of its decision.
Earlier, on December 2, North Jeolla education officials had sent the province’s schools official letters telling schools to inform them of whether or not they would be participating in the test.
“We would like to confirm which schools do not want to take the test, in order to lessen our workload,” the letter said. We “hope schools decide whether or not to take the test after ample discussion among school administrators.”
One official said the idea was “to give special schools, like alternative schools, some flexibility and allow schools to opt out of the test.” Aside from Jangsu Middle School, the other two schools in the province that chose not to participate in the exam are classified as “alternative.”
Meanwhile, 142 professors of education form across the country issued a statement on Tuesday in which they called on education officials to withdraw their dismissal of teachers who permitted students to participate in field trips instead of taking the test.
“Tests taken nationally and simultaneously are standardized assessments that ‘line schools up in order’ without policy consideration for areas that are neglected in education and without measures to support them, and the invariable result will be overheated university entrance competition and a bigger private tutoring craze,” the statement read.
“In a situation in which so many questioning the legitimacy of the simultaneous test, it is understandable enough that educators let students choose between field trips and the test after consulting with the subjects of the education, parents and students. And yet education officials are using ‘violent’ methods against them, such as removing them from their positions.”
The statement noted that in the United States, when students do not wish to take standardized tests, they can be excused from such exams after their parents convey those wishes to their respective schools.
The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education has announced it will issue jungjinggye (“heavy censure,” which is often synonymous with firing) for teachers who either allowed students to go on field trips or who otherwise encouraged students to refuse to take the exam.
Source: Hankyoreh
