There was a story from Korea this week which makes even Japan’s education system seem reasonable and easy going in comparison.
Korea’s college entrance exams are notoriously tough. The students have to sit for eight hours in a single day, being tested in a range of subjects.
At one testing site, an examiner misread the clock and rang the bell to end the Korean language part of the examination 90 seconds early. The students noticed the error and complained bitterly at the time, but the error could not be fully corrected. Some students were apparently so furious and disturbed by the error that they gave up taking the rest of their examinations and went home. More than thirty students are now suing the examination board for thousands of dollars in compensation each.
I sympathise with the young people taking the exams, who were pressured by society to treat these exams as the most important event in their lives. No wonder they felt so cheated by the loss of 90 seconds. You could quickly scan your paper and correct several errors in that time.
But how can the education system have gone so badly wrong in Korea that the loss of 90 seconds would make some students give up and go home? This is hardly good preparation for later life. Life is full of unfairness and unforseen problems. If you have a 90 second argument with your husband or wife, should you give up on the relationship and storm out in disgust?
What is school preparing these students for? Life is not an examination. What situation they face later in life will be similar to a marathon eight hour cycle of questions?
Shouldn’t Korean schools be spending less time drilling facts into students’ brains, and more time teaching them how to build strong relationships, and how to find happiness in a stressful world?
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