'Do we need essay tutoring?' 203 citizens to deliberate on adding written exams to Korea's college entrance test

Two hundred and three citizen panel members will gather for a two-day deliberative forum to debate whether to introduce written and essay-style assessments to the College Scholastic Ability Test, known as the CSAT, and expand such questions in high school transcripts.

The National Education Commission announced Friday that it will hold the "Citizen Panel Future University Admissions Deliberative Forum" at the YBM Training Center in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, on Saturday and Sunday.

The 203 participants — drawn from a 500-member citizen panel comprising students, youth, parents, education professionals and members of the general public — signed up voluntarily. They will form small groups of seven to eight people and work through six sessions covering the direction of future university admissions, the expansion of written and essay-style assessments in school transcripts, and whether to introduce such assessments to the CSAT.

On the first day, participants will review the direction of future university admissions before hearing expert presentations on written and essay-style assessments and AI-assisted grading.

They will then discuss scoring fairness, the impact on private tutoring and the feasibility of implementation in schools, drawing on presentations from four speakers — including teachers and parent group representatives — arguing both for and against the changes. The second day will feature in-depth discussions on key issues, exploration of alternatives and a follow-up opinion survey.

According to preparatory materials distributed by the commission, school districts across the country currently recommend or require that high school exams include at least 20 to 40 percent written and essay-style questions. A survey of 167 high school teachers by the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation found that written and essay questions accounted for 25.1 percent of regular exam scores and 34.7 percent of performance assessments.

However, many of the actual questions required relatively short answers. An analysis of first-year Korean language exams from 166 high schools nationwide in 2024 found that only 1 percent of written and essay questions required answers of one paragraph or more. Questions calling for a single word or phrase accounted for 26.1 percent, while those requiring a single sentence accounted for 45.0 percent.

The biggest concerns surrounding the introduction of written and essay questions to the CSAT center on the fairness and reliability of grading. Questions have been raised about whether hundreds of thousands of answer sheets can be scored consistently against the same standard, and whether the results would invite disputes and legal challenges. Other key issues include rising private tutoring costs for essay preparation, the widening education gap between the greater Seoul area and other regions, and the added workload on teachers from writing and grading questions.

AI-assisted grading has been raised as a way to ease the burden on teachers, but the commission said AI could assign biased scores depending on the answer or fail to adequately explain its reasoning. Even with AI involvement, teachers would still need to finalize scores and review errors, it said.

The forum's findings will be reported to the commission and then made public. The commission plans to use them as reference material for the National Education Development Plan covering 2028 to 2037 and for future university admissions policy.

"University admissions is an important agenda item that has a significant impact on education in schools, so we must listen carefully to public opinion alongside expert discussions," commission Chairman Cha Jeong-in said. "We plan to continue the public deliberation process through a variety of formats."