Over 18,700 to take Korean fluency test on Sunday

The Test of Proficiency in Korean (Topik), a Korean-language skills evaluation examination, which has seen the number of test takers grow 17-fold over a decade, will be held simultaneously in 18 testing sites nationwide including in Seoul, Busan, Daejeon and Jeju, on Sunday.

Over 18,700 people signed up to take the upcoming 29th Topik, administered by the National Institute for International Education, under the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology.

Of these test takers, 44.9 percent are taking it to study in Korea, a quarter to evaluate their Korean language skills and 13.5 percent for employment here. Others want to understand Korean culture better.

Topik is held four times a year in 62 countries to evaluate Korean language skills for overseas Koreans and foreigners learning Korean as a second language aiming to enroll in Korean colleges or work here.

Twice a year, Topik is administered overseas as well as in Korea. The test topics are vocabulary, writing, listening and reading.

The exam, which has to date seen over a million test takers, was first administered by the Korea Research Foundation in 1997, and now is in its 17th year. Last year, there were a total of 151,166 Topik test takers, compared to 8,788 in 2002.

Those taking Topik in Seoul can take the test on five university campuses including Kyung Hee, Sungkyunkwan and Konkuk universities.

The exam is administered on university campuses in 11 other cities including Chonnam National University in Gwangju and Inha University in Incheon.

By Sarah Kim [sarahkim@joongang.co.kr]