[EDITORIALS]Another flaw of CSAT

It’s a serious problem that the examiners of the College Scholastic Ability Test included a university professor who also works for an online study Web site specializing in the college entrance exam. We are taken aback more by the fact that part of the professor’s master’s degree thesis was used in the actual CSAT. This year’s CSAT turned out to be full of flaws in how the questions were created, not to mention how examiners were chosen.
The CSAT is considered the most important tool in university admissions. It shows the sorry state of our education, where examinees struggle hard at cram schools to get higher scores, neglecting regular school curriculums. The impartiality of the CSAT is called into question when a well-known essay instructor at a cram school takes part in presenting questions. The instructor is so good at making good guesses of the test questions that every examinee knows about him.
Having this teacher create questions clearly gives some credence to the assumption that cram schools are much better for the CSAT than regular schools. Shamelessly, the Korea Institution of Curriculum and Evaluation and the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development won’t acknowledge their mistake.
Especially astonishing is that before the CSAT date, the instructor’s Web site said one of the CSAT examiners majored in philosophy and his thesis would likely be on the test. Obviously, those students who happened to see the posting before the test had an advantage over those who didn’t. It’s no surprise that the Web site of the Korea Institution of Curriculum and Evaluation is flooded with requests for a re-examination.
This fiasco occurred because the Education Ministry and the Korea Institution of Curriculum and Evaluation got lazy after 10 years without any incidents. The government must find those responsible with a thorough investigation and must improve the way CSAT examiners are picked to avoid a repeat of this bungling. The government should see, before concluding that there were no victims, if there are any students who were at a disadvantage and then consider reparations.