Yoon controversially challenges South Korean exam practices

President takes on lucrative cramming industry and educational inequality

20230627 SK exam main

Top tutors assume celebrity status on billboards advertising their cramming services. (Photo by Ahn Seong-bok)

JUNNOSUKE KOBARA, Nikkei staff writer

SEOUL -- South Korea's President Yoon Suk Yeol has stirred up the country's education system by suggesting that it is wrong for Suneung, the country's standardized university entrance examination, to include questions not covered in the textbooks used in state schools.

South Korea's intense exam wars have been cited as one of the reasons for the country's declining birthrate, so any changes to the standardized national exam attract intense scrutiny.

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