[Letters] Fix, don’t dump what helps most

Regarding “Closing the Education Gap” [Editorial, April 17], my opinion is that the disclosure of the national test results is like opening a can full of worms. There are obvious reasons past administrations have stuck to the principle of withholding the results.

First of all, disclosure will lead to widening the gap between schools more than ever. Parents will prefer urban schools with higher scores and want to move their children to those areas. This will cause housing prices to skyrocket and only students from economically well-off families will have opportunities to study where they want. It will worsen inequality between students and schools.

Second, we must not blame the egalitarian system of education for the gap between schools. The Korean education system has not provided true opportunities by removing and minimizing the differences between schools and environments that caused inconsistencies in the past.

Once we notice the gap, we have to make up for it by taking complementary measures through an egalitarian system. It’s better to fix the present egalitarian system rather than abolish it and adopt a system of elite education.

Third, releasing the test results will lead schools to more competition. Schools will focus on education by knowledge accumulation to get high scores. They will change school curricula and put more emphasis on the subjects related to the national test. In addition, it will boost the private education industry for students who want to get high scores in school. Public education must exist for whole-person learning, not only for book knowledge.

The government should hold back the policy of releasing the test results in order to avoid negative effects. No students must be discriminated against on account of differences in economic wealth or social origin. Releasing the national test results might be the first step leading the Korean education system to a system of elite education based on discrimination.

To serve the many rather than a few, the government must recalibrate the egalitarian education system.

Cho Jeong-hee, Gyeonggi