As a computer network outage occurred during the application process for early admissions to universities, the Ministry of Education decided to identify the cause and review the entire system.
On the 13th, the Ministry of Education said, "To prevent similar cases from occurring in the future, we will carry out a comprehensive review of the application system along with measures to prevent a recurrence."
Through a briefing, the Ministry of Education said it is "taking very seriously the inconvenience and concern caused to test-takers and parents by the application system failure at Uway Apply," and added, "We will thoroughly investigate the entire application system, including the cause, actual situation, and actions taken regarding Uway Apply's system failure."
Detailed measures and procedures to remedy the situation for test-takers who were unable to submit applications on time due to the system failure are expected to be released on the day. The Ministry of Education explained, "Together with the Korean Council for University Education (KCUE), we are swiftly preparing remedies so that test-takers who could not complete their applications due to the system failure will not be disadvantaged."
Earlier, at about 5:50 p.m. on the 11th, a problem occurred in the Uway Apply network, which handles university application submissions, causing some applicants to fail to complete document submission and payment on time. In response, KCUE extended the application deadline by one hour, from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.
However, some test-takers raised objections, saying that the extension of the submission deadline undermined fair competition among applicants. They argue that while some test-takers may have had to forgo applying because they could not submit on time due to the system failure, others benefited from the extra time. Because some universities disclosed department-by-department application status at the original deadline of 6 p.m., there is a claim that some test-takers checked that information and strategically submitted during the extended time.