The government is holding a national deliberative discussion on college entrance exam reform for the first time in eight years.
The National Education Commission (NEC), a presidential advisory body, announced on August 28 that it will host the “National Participatory Committee Deliberative Discussion on Future College Entrance Systems” at a training institute in Hwaseong City, Gyeonggi Province, on August 29–30. During the discussion, the NEC will seek public opinion on introducing essay-type questions in the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT). However, the “conversion of the CSAT to absolute evaluation,” which the NEC has been discussing alongside this, was excluded from the deliberative discussion topics.
According to the NEC, 203 participants—selected from 500 members of the National Participatory Committee—will attend the discussion. Over one night and two days, they will listen to expert presentations and debate the “direction of future college entrance systems” and “expanding essay-type evaluations in school records and whether to introduce essay-type evaluations in the CSAT.”
Before the discussion, the NEC distributed a 39-page pre-learning material booklet to participants. Citing Stanford University’s “AI Index Report,” it noted that artificial intelligence has already surpassed human averages in areas like reading comprehension and reasoning. The booklet also included statistics showing that the population aged 6–17 will decrease from 8.1 million people in 2000 to 3.09 million people in 2035. It emphasized that education must adapt to rapid societal changes and that introducing essay-type evaluations in the CSAT is part of this effort. Regarding the need to discuss college entrance systems, the NEC stated, “College entrance systems profoundly influence primary, middle, and high school education, and educational innovation efforts not linked to these systems struggle to take root in practice.”
The booklet also included school-level statistics. A survey by the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation of 167 high school teachers found that essay-type evaluations accounted for 25.1% of regular exams and 34.7% of performance assessments. An analysis of 166 high schools nationwide revealed that in the first-semester regular Korean language exams for first-year students two years ago, 26.1% of essay-type questions required answers at the word or phrase level, 45% at the single-sentence level, 27.7% at the multi-sentence level, and only 1% at the paragraph or longer level.
Key issues mentioned in the booklet included fairness in grading essay-type questions, private education burdens, and school conditions. The NEC acknowledged that essay-type answers vary widely and grading relies on evaluators’ judgments, raising concerns about fairness and reliability. However, it argued that countries like France, Germany, and China have long used essay-type evaluations in large-scale national exams. It added that AI grading systems now align closely with human graders and some education offices already operate AI-assisted grading systems, reducing concerns.
Regarding criticism that introducing essay-type CSAT questions could increase private education costs, the NEC countered that aligning high school records and CSAT formats would allow public education to prepare students for essay-type evaluations, potentially reducing reliance on private education. It cited studies in Jeju middle and high schools and Daegu elementary and middle schools where students rated private education’s helpfulness at 3 or below on a 5-point scale, while school satisfaction remained above 80–90%.
The NEC will reference the booklet and expert presentations during the discussion, with small groups sharing their deliberations after each session.
The deliberative discussion will not address converting all CSAT subjects to absolute evaluation. While the NEC’s college entrance task force has discussed this, it will not seek public input on the issue. Since essay-type evaluations involve subjective grading, they are harder to differentiate by score than multiple-choice questions. This has led to calls in the education sector to pair essay-type evaluations with absolute grading. Education Minister Choi Kyo-jin recently stated that introducing essay-type questions and applying absolute evaluation should proceed together.
Some in the education sector speculate that the NEC is avoiding publicizing the absolute evaluation conversion to prevent repeating controversies from the Moon Jae-in administration. That government abandoned its pledge to convert all CSAT subjects to absolute evaluation after public backlash over concerns about reduced differentiation. An NEC official said, “There are concerns that if ‘absolute evaluation’ dominates the discussion, the entire reform could collapse, as it did during the Moon administration.”
The NEC held regional discussions in Incheon on August 11, Jeollanam-do and Gwangju on August 20, and Daegu on August 26. It has also been collecting online opinions since August 14. In late October, it will release a draft of the “Mid- to Long-Term (2028–2037) National Education Development Plan,” which will include college entrance system reform proposals. The final plan is expected to be confirmed in March next year.
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