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SEOUL, South Korea — Almost a half-million South Korean highschool seniors hunkered down on Thursday to take an annual university-entrance examination they’d been making ready for since kindergarten — a nine-hour marathon of assessments that might determine their futures.
However this 12 months, the federal government had to make sure the examination didn’t turn out to be a super-spreader occasion for the coronavirus.
For days, well being officers in full protecting gear had repeatedly disinfected 31,000 lecture rooms the place the examination was to happen.
All college students needed to get their temperature taken earlier than getting into the school rooms. They sat at desks separated by plastic dividers and wore masks all through the check.
Authorities-run well being clinics stayed in a single day to check college students and display screen anybody contaminated with the virus on the final minute. These with a fever or sore throat had been escorted to separate rooms to take their exams. A minimum of one pupil confirmed up in full protecting gear for concern of catching the coronavirus.
“I got here early as a result of I feared that I is perhaps caught in a site visitors jam,” one other pupil, Kim Mun-jeong, informed the cable channel JTBC. “I additionally needed to test into the test-taking room earlier than different college students to get myself familiarized with it and achieve composure.”
On this education-obsessed nation, it’s onerous to overestimate the significance of the School Scholastic Skill Exams, or suneung, within the lifetime of a South Korean pupil.
Most universities choose their college students primarily based largely on the check scores of the one standardized year-end examination. Diplomas from a number of high universities like Seoul Nationwide could make an enormous distinction when making use of for jobs and promotions. Many college students who fail to enter the schools they covet take the assessments once more and once more within the following years, usually dwelling and learning in institutes with militarylike self-discipline.
Examination day can be a day when the nation collectively wrings its arms and far of life is placed on pause.
All banks, companies and authorities workplaces delayed opening their doorways by an hour to minimize street site visitors. All planes had been grounded and all army weapons silenced for half an hour for concern they could interrupt college students centered on an English listening-comprehension check. Within the Jogyesa Buddhist temple in Central Seoul, mother and father lit candles and burned incense as they prayed for the success of their youngsters taking the examination.
The pandemic has added new twists and an additional layer of hysteria and suspense to the grueling check. South Korea is grappling with a 3rd wave of coronavirus infections, with well being officers reporting a few of the highest each day caseloads the nation has seen. Previously week, the nation has reported 438 to 581 new instances per day, together with 540 on Thursday.
“Examination-takers and their mother and father, who’ve been supporting them, have had a more durable time this 12 months than ever due to Covid-19,” mentioned Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun, referring to how the pandemic has upended college life. “We should do every little thing we are able to to guarantee that the scholars take their examination safely, and put together for any emergencies that may occur through the examination day.”
Suneung often takes place in mid-November, however the check was pushed again by two weeks as a result of the pandemic delayed college openings by a month in spring. Officers took further precautions to verify college students reached the examination websites safely and on time.
On Thursday, law enforcement officials with bikes had been dispatched to choose up these operating late for the check.
Even those that examined constructive for the virus received the prospect to take the college-entrance examination. The Schooling Ministry and well being officers ready negative-pressure hospital chambers on the Seoul Medical Middle and 24 different hospitals in order that 35 pupil with Covid-19 may take their exams whereas examination directors carrying Stage-D protecting fits saved watch. Nurses additionally saved a detailed eye on the scholars by means of closed-circuit tv screens for indicators of bother.
Greater than 400 college students below a two-week quarantine had been additionally allowed to sit down for the check within the specifically ready amenities.
The significance of suneung could be traced again to the destitute many years following the Korean Battle, when households noticed training because the ticket for his or her youngsters to flee poverty. The nation’s razor-sharp concentrate on training is usually cited for serving to its dramatic postwar transformation, going from one of many world’s poorest below dictatorship to one in all its richest democracies.
At present, younger South Koreans are among the many world’s most extremely educated. In 2017, 70 p.c of the nation’s inhabitants of 25- to 34-year-olds had a tertiary training, in accordance with the Group for Financial Cooperation and Improvement.
Many households begin making ready their youngsters from kindergarten, enrolling them in after-school cram classes or hiring personal tutors to raise their math and English-language abilities. Rich households fork over hundreds of {dollars} a month to assist their youngsters, making a multibillion-dollar exam-preparation trade and eroding a as soon as broadly held perception amongst poorer households that college-entrance exams had been an excellent equalizer for social mobility.
The examination has been linked, nevertheless, to troubling traits.
The hovering academic prices are sometimes blamed for the nation’s low birthrates, as households felt they might not afford to finance the training of a number of youngsters. Suicide is the No. 1 reason behind demise for South Koreans between the ages of 10 and 29. And when analysts talk about the nation’s suicide charges, among the many world’s highest, they usually cite the intense degree of stress brought on by the examination.
However suneung endures.
In previous years, whereas the remainder of the nation would fall silent on suneung day, early morning scenes in entrance of school-turned-test-sites could possibly be raucous. As college students arrived bundled up in opposition to the chilly, junior highschool college students would chant slogans, unfurl placards, beat drums and hand out sticky rice taffy known as “yeot” — all for good luck.
Such scenes have all however vanished this 12 months due to social distancing guidelines. As elsewhere, college life in South Korea has been thrown off stability, with well being officers inserting limits on the variety of college students allowed into the classroom or closing faculties altogether and switching to on-line instruction because the outbreaks raged and subsided.
On Thursday, moms silently accompanied their youngsters to the check websites, hugging them and whispering, “Good luck!” on the gates. Fathers held rosaries as they prayed at college partitions.
For many who end the exams, the official check outcomes will come out on Dec. 23.
However college students can get an inkling of how effectively — or poorly — they’ve executed as quickly as they go away the check web site. A authorities web site reveals preliminary solutions to all of the questions as quickly as every part of the nine-hour examination is accomplished.
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