SEOUL: A group of students in South Korea is suing the government because their college admission examination ended 90 seconds earlier than scheduled.
They are demanding 20 million won ($15,400; £12,000) each, equivalent to the cost of a year’s worth of study to retake the exam. Their lawyer argues that the mistake had repercussions on the entire group of students taking the exam.
South Korea’s renowned college admission test, known as ‘Suneung,’ is an arduous eight-hour marathon featuring consecutive papers in various subjects.
Widely considered one of the most challenging exams globally, the stakes are incredibly high. Suneung dictates university placements and job opportunities and can influence future relationships. To ensure students can focus during the annual event, various measures are implemented, including closing the country’s airspace and delaying the stock market opening.
The results for this year’s exam were disclosed on December 8. A lawsuit, initiated on Tuesday by a minimum of 39 students, alleges that an early bell rang at a test site in the capital, Seoul, during the initial subject, Korean, of the exam.
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Despite immediate protests by some students, supervisors reportedly confiscated their papers. Teachers acknowledged the error before the next session and attempted to rectify it by returning one and a half minutes during the lunch break. However, students could only mark blank columns on their papers and were not permitted to alter existing answers.
Expressing deep distress, students claimed they could not concentrate on the remaining exam, with some opting to abandon the test and return home, as reported by Yonhap. According to their lawyer, Kim Woo-suk, education authorities have yet to apologize.
Public broadcaster KBS quoted officials stating that the supervisor at the specific test site misread the time. This incident is not the first instance of students filing lawsuits over prematurely rung bells. In April, a Seoul court awarded 7 million won ($5,250; £4,200) to students who contended they were disadvantaged in the 2021 Suneung exam due to an early bell.
In a more extreme case in 2012, a man in China received a one-year suspended sentence for ringing the bell over four minutes and 48 seconds early during the national college entrance exam in Hunan province.
