Seoul, South Korea (CNN) Half a million students are sitting South Korea’s infamously tough National College Entryway Exam on Thursday, a marathon day of tests that is the nation’s response to the SATs and can figure out a teenager’s future.
The tests are so considerable that, in typical years, the country presents extreme steps to support trainees– workplace hours are changed to clear roads to avoid trainees getting stuck in traffic and flights are rescheduled to avoid the noise of aircraft engines interfering with the English listening test.
However this year, even greater planning has been needed, as South Korea tries to hold the examinations while keeping teenagers safe from coronavirus. Students will have their temperature level inspected prior to getting in the testing facilities and will require to use masks throughout the test.
Arrangements were even produced 3,775 trainees to take the tests from quarantine, and for the 35 students who evaluated favorable for Covid-19 as of Tuesday to sit the exam from a healthcare facility bed.
The tests assist choose whether students will make it into the most prominent colleges and what profession path they can take– some alternatives, such as medication, will be shut down to trainees who do not get a high-enough score.
” Every person comprehends the test to be a major nationwide occasion,” Education Minister Yoo Eun-hae informed CNN in an exclusive interview ahead of the test.
South Korea has actually been reasonably successful at controlling its Covid-19 break out, with more than 35,000 reported cases and 529 deaths.
But as trainees prepared for the most significant test of their high-school profession, the country has actually been struck by a third wave of cases, especially in cosmopolitan Seoul, where half the country’s population lives. A week before the test, Yoo bought high schools throughout the nation to shut and change to online classes.
What it’s like doing an examination during coronavirus
That South Korea can hold its college placement tests at all is impressive– and is down to cautious planning by authorities.
Other countries have been required to cancel or postpone exams due to coronavirus– the United States College Board, for instance, canceled the SATs that were due to be held in May, pointing out student security The United Kingdom canceled A-levels, which figure out university entryway, and trainees got the grades their teachers anticipated for them.
However it’s barely examination season as normal in South Korea.
Usually, worried parents cheer their kids on as they get in the testing centers, however this year, Seoul authorities informed parents to refrain from cheering or waiting outside the school gate on the day of the test. Anyone who revealed sign of health problem was bought to sit the test in a separate space where invigilators wore full hazmat fits.
Students were separated by dividers as they sat their test, and the federal government developed ventilation guidelines for examination spaces. Trainees were avoided from using lunchroom or waiting halls to minimize contact.
Public health centers performed tests until 10 p.m. the day prior to the examination, to encourage students to get detected if they had signs. Covid tests for trainees were prioritized. One high school teacher in Daejeon, a city south of Seoul, evaluated positive around 9.30 p.m. Wednesday. After one of his close contacts tested favorable, lots of exam employees were substituted for reserve personnel.
For students taking the exam, those procedures made an already tough test more stressful. Seoul trainee Hwang Yoon-jae, who was taking the exam for a second time after finishing the year prior to, said he had actually been studying near 15 hours a day, including over weekends, for months.
” I’m more anxious (this year) because we need to take the test in much even worse condition,” he stated. “We need to wear masks, and there is a plastic divider on the desk.”
What is the risk?
Authorities are taking additional procedures for a basic reason: they are desperate to avoid an exam-related break out.
Unlike earlier break outs, the third wave has been spreading out among younger individuals, according to Korea Disease Control and Avoidance Company. And after Thursday’s test, some trainees will take a trip throughout the nation to sit additional tests held by colleges.
” While we had completely prepared, I hesitate of the rare situation where an unnoticed patient is found among the examination takers and start a community spread,” Education Minister Yoo stated. “We are doing all we can to prevent such a situation.”
However for individuals, the risk was undue.
In current weeks, some 6,000 people signed an online petition calling for the examination to be postponed by two weeks. The petition stated holding the test now was “like tossing trainees into a pit of fire” and questioned whether schooling is more crucial than children’s health.
In online communities where high school seniors share examination ideas, numerous trainees stated they were fretted that if they captured Covid throughout the examination they could be required to quarantine, meaning they may miss the extra college tests the list below week.
However President Moon Jae-in’s government was determined that the exam should continue.
” If we safely hold the examination in such hard times without leaving out those infected and quarantined, the superiority of K-quarantine will shine even brighter,” Moon stated in a tweet this week
Yoo likewise mentioned that the examination had actually currently been delayed by 2 weeks as soon as previously. She also said that South Korea had effectively held a basic election in April throughout coronavirus, an election that saw Moon’s party reelected in a landslide– and drew in the highest turnout in almost 30 years
Although Na Yeong-seo, a high school senior in the satellite city beyond Seoul, stated the mask she needed to wear and large divider set up on her desk would make it challenging to focus, she was more anxious about the uncertainty brought by the pandemic, offered the test has actually currently been pushed back when.
” To be sincere, I wish to finish the test as rapidly as possible. Obviously, it will threaten,” she said. “The constant delay and the following endless studying would be really hard for me. I desire it to end soon.”
Despite the Covid-19 risk, Hwang, the Seoul trainee, said he wasn’t that worried about being contaminated.
” I think any trainee would be more concerned about getting a bad result on the examination than capturing Covid,” he said.
CNN’s Gawon Bae, Son So-mi and Joh Yun-ji contributed reporting from Seoul.
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