Seoul High Court on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit against the state to nullify the grading for a defective question on the 2013 College Scholastic Ability Test, saying that sufficient action had already been taken following last year’s ruling on the same question.
In December 2013, 59 people who took that year’s state-commissioned college entrance exam, called the Suneung here, launched a lawsuit against the Education Ministry and the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation ― in charge of making Suneung questions ― and asked that a supposedly flawed world geography question be thrown out.
While the court ruled against the test-takers, groups of four and of 18 students separately appealed the case. In June of last year, a local appeals court overturned the decision in favor of the four test-takers, and the education authorities changed the scores of all affected students.
“The KICE has already canceled grading for all the plaintiffs. A case for an already resolved action is illegitimate,” the court said in its ruling.
As of now, a group of 100 test-takers have filed a separate lawsuit against the state, demanding to be compensated for damage inflicted upon them by the flawed question.
Last year’s ruling that the Suneung question was flawed touched off public concern over the accuracy of the annual test, and further concerns arose after the discovery of two more errors on the 2014 exam. Amid criticism, the government promptly vowed to revamp the tests and will announce its plans by March.
By Yoon Min-sik (
minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com)
