South Korea: Controversy over abolishing the university entrance exam.

GD&TĐ - Many South Korean education experts are suggesting the abolition of the college entrance exam (CSAT) due to its difficulty and relevance in the digital age.

This is considered one of the most rigorous exams in the world , alongside China's gaokao.

The 2025 South Korean university entrance exam has been criticized as being too difficult and impractical. While exam officials maintain there were no errors, many experts have voiced their objections. A humanities professor at Pohang University of Science and Technology claims that question 17 in the Korean language section has no correct answer, while question 24 in the English section has received over 300 official complaints.

The controversy is not limited to domestic media. International media, including the BBC, have also described the English section of the test as excessively difficult. According to experts, the problem is not whether the test is easy or difficult, but rather that the CSAT is increasingly deviating from the official curriculum and core educational goals.

Many have analyzed the English test and concluded that approximately 40% of the reading comprehension questions exceed the highest difficulty level of current high school English textbooks.

Critics of the CSAT exam argue that, in the age of AI, an exam based primarily on multiple-choice questions with a single correct answer is no longer suitable for assessing students' holistic abilities.

Time pressure and a "choose the right answer" mindset may help filter candidates, but it struggles to cultivate essential 21st-century skills such as critical thinking, creativity, complex problem-solving, and the ability to form independent opinions.

The wave of protests spurred reform proposals. The director of Seoul's Education Bureau, Jung Keun-sik, publicly proposed gradually phasing out the CSAT exam.

According to the roadmap he outlined, by 2033, all school tests and the CSAT will transition to a form of absolute assessment, while expanding written and essay tests. The CSAT could be abolished entirely by 2040, making way for an admissions system based on student profiles, interviews, and more diverse assessment methods, with greater autonomy for universities.

Behind the reform proposals lies the increasingly evident demographic pressure. According to data from the Korean National Statistics Office and the Korean Council for Higher Education, the number of 18-year-old students intending to attend university has sharply declined, from over 820,000 in 2000 to approximately 456,000 today. This number is projected to drop to nearly 260,000 by 2040. In this context of a shrinking school population, a rigorous admissions system based on a single exam reveals numerous shortcomings.

Fifteen senior educators signed a letter to the South Korean president. The authors criticized the CSAT as a "ranking" test that prioritizes student classification over education. They argued that while the government aspires to make South Korea a leading artificial intelligence powerhouse, schools remain constrained by outdated 20th-century rote learning and test preparation methods.

According to The Korea Times

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