The Ministry of Education released a survey saying more than half of teachers and students were satisfied with the high school credit system. But teachers' groups criticized it as a "faulty survey" and called for an overhaul of the system.
The Ministry of Education and the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation (KICE) said on the 26th, based on a survey conducted for the "study analyzing the performance of the high school credit system," that "teachers and students' satisfaction with the high school credit system is relatively high."
Under the high school credit system, students complete elective subjects according to their aptitude and career path, and graduate after accumulating 192 credits. To help students build self-directed learning skills and plan their careers, it was rolled out nationwide for first-year high school students starting in Mar. this year.
The evaluation institute conducted the survey from Aug. 19 to 29 on 160 general high schools, covering ▲ the high school credit system curriculum ▲ guidance on subject selection ▲ guidance to guarantee minimum achievement levels. Respondents totaled 11,513, including 6,885 first-year students, who experienced the high school credit system for the first time this year, and 4,628 teachers.
According to the findings, in "satisfaction with the school curriculum," 74.4% of students said "I can freely choose the subjects I want." Also, 62% of students said "I am satisfied with the school's guidance on career and academic planning." Likewise, 79.1% of teachers said "the school offers enough of the subjects students want."
But there are voices in direct opposition. A joint internal survey by three teachers' organizations—the Korean Federation of Teachers' Associations (KFTA), the Teachers' Unions Confederation, and the Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union (KTU)—of 4,060 teachers conducted from the 4th to the 14th found that 9 out of 10 experienced increased anxiety and stress due to the high school credit system.
The three teachers' groups said of the ministry's survey, "The survey required schools to specify their names, and the questions were structured to assess the level of effort by individuals and schools rather than the system itself, leading teacher respondents to feel it was difficult to treat it as an evaluation of the system," adding, "Student responses also required entering the school name, grade, student number, name, and mobile phone number, which may have acted as a psychological barrier to expressing frank and critical opinions."
The three teachers' groups said, "The ministry's survey results present conclusions that are completely different from perceptions on the ground," and added, "Beyond a simple difference in figures, we express strong concern that findings that are hard to accept could be packaged as 'the views of schools on the ground' and influence future policy decisions and directions."
Meanwhile, addressing the criticism that "the findings differ from voices on the ground that there are many problems in running the high school credit system," a Ministry of Education official said, "The survey results differed depending on the sampling targets," and added, "We recognize that parts of the high school credit system still need improvement and will actively prepare institutional remedies."