‘EBS entrance exam lectures have little effect’

TV lectures on Korea’s college entrance exam aired on a state-run education channel did little to improve students’ scores and curb sky-high private education costs, a study showed Monday.

The government-backed EBS Suneung programs were implemented in 2010 in a bid to reduce the overall expenditure on private education. The Education Ministry’s goal was to enable students to prepare for the crucial November exam via EBS lectures alone as these would have a bearing on roughly 70 percent of the test questions.

But a study by Gil Hye-ji, a doctoral candidate from Seoul National University, showed that less than 10 percent of the students prepared for the Suneung relying solely on the EBS programs. The percentage of students who studied for the Korean, math and English sections ― the subjects that heavily affect a student’s overall grade ― via the programs were 2.8 percent, 5.4 percent and 3.6 percent, respectfully.

Gil’s report also showed that watching the TV lectures made very little difference for Korean and English; it only resulted in a 0.58 point improvement in Korean ― 100.53 to 101.11 ― and students who did not watch the EBS lectures actually got better scores than those who did, with the former averaging 99.82 and the latter getting 98.78.

The only subject on which the EBS lectures had a significant impact was math, as students who watched the lectures scored 101.29 compared to 98.16 for students who did not.

While EBS lectures had some effects on lowering private education spending on Korean and English, the impact was “dismissible” in the case of math.

Although the lectures were not very effective in terms of improving scores on the whole, students from low-income families or rural areas benefited significantly more, the study showed. It also implied that students with relatively higher grades were likely to experience negative effects from the lectures, while ones with lower grades tended to benefit from them.

This means reaping benefits from the EBS lectures requires a different strategy for each student, Gil said.

By Yoon Min-sik (minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com)