Disqualified students seek redress

Following their disqualification for alleged cheating during this year’s College Scholastic Ability Test, several students are complaining about the inflexibility of the Education Ministry’s stronger rules. The ministry banned the possession of all electronic devices at test sites to prevent cheating. The Institute of Curriculum and Evaluation said 27 students with cell-phones and three with MP3 players were disqualified at this year’s test. Five were disqualified for other irregularities.
A 20-year-old woman in Gyeonggi province left an MP3 player in her bag beside a lectern at the front of the test room after the exam supervisor only ordered “cell-phones and calculators” to be collected. When another supervisor monitoring an English test later asked for MP3 players to be submitted, she did so. The next day, however, the Education Ministry disqualified her and banned her from taking the test next year.
An 18-year-old male student in Gangju was also disqualified after taking the test wearing his brother’s coat, which contained his father’s cell phone. The father called the cell-phone to find out where it was as the student was taking the test.
The two argued that they just had the devices and did not cheat, but the ministry said it had to follow the law. It noted that repeated media announcements had informed students of the ban.
Park Hyung-il, an attorney, said, “There could be a legal dispute if a student is accused of cheating only because he or she possessed the devices, although there was no intent to cheat.”
Meanwhile, the evaluation institute said that after cutting out overlapping complaints from 250 submitted objections, 30 to 40 questions will be examined from Nov. 8 to Dec. 5. Last year 609 objections were submitted under a new complaints system, but all were rejected as “without reason.”
This year’s results will be announced on Dec. 19, according to the institute.

by Kim Nam-joong