Today was college entrance exam day here in Korea. Here, in the city of Seoul, nearly 600,000 students (more than the population of my capital city, Belfast) took the exam. They can only sit it on this one day and this single day carries the weight of nearly eight years school work. I think it's like the American SAT exams, but more intense. It's very different to our system at home where the exams are spread out over weeks and so the pressure is immense. Basically it seems that a persons whole future is determined by this one exam. In the Korean society great emphasis is placed on which university you went to and how high it ranks. This in turn determines which company you get in to and which position.
So one this day huge provisions are made for the students, some I didn't actually believe until I read in the paper. Understandably extra subway trains and buses were scheduled for the morning rush as the students made their way to the nearly 1000 exam venues around the city. But flight departures and arrivals were also postponed and rescheduled so the noise wouldn't interfere with students. Company workers and civil servants were told to come to work an hour later to ease traffic jams, etc. Car drivers and subway drivers were told to refrain from blowing their horns except in emergencies. And on top of all that, police and ambulance services were at the disposal of any students running late. So if a student got held up (or took too long eating breakfast) he could call 911 and a police car, motorcycle or ambulance would pick him up and bring him to the exam venue because anyone arriving late must wait another year for the test.
It all sounds very fascinating to me, and to add to the excitement of it all, the younger highschool students came out in force to encourange their school mates with cheers and chants and other bizarre behaviour. It's all completely normal here, but as exciting as it sounds, I can't imagine going through that kind to pressure at the age of seventeen, or any age for that matter.
So one this day huge provisions are made for the students, some I didn't actually believe until I read in the paper. Understandably extra subway trains and buses were scheduled for the morning rush as the students made their way to the nearly 1000 exam venues around the city. But flight departures and arrivals were also postponed and rescheduled so the noise wouldn't interfere with students. Company workers and civil servants were told to come to work an hour later to ease traffic jams, etc. Car drivers and subway drivers were told to refrain from blowing their horns except in emergencies. And on top of all that, police and ambulance services were at the disposal of any students running late. So if a student got held up (or took too long eating breakfast) he could call 911 and a police car, motorcycle or ambulance would pick him up and bring him to the exam venue because anyone arriving late must wait another year for the test.
It all sounds very fascinating to me, and to add to the excitement of it all, the younger highschool students came out in force to encourange their school mates with cheers and chants and other bizarre behaviour. It's all completely normal here, but as exciting as it sounds, I can't imagine going through that kind to pressure at the age of seventeen, or any age for that matter.
Here are a couple of related articles from today's Korea Times:
College Entrance Exam Today
Korean Test Culture ― Too Unique
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