South Korea fell quiet on Thursday ashundreds of thousands of students sat the high-stakes nationaluniversity entrance exam, with the added tension of strictanti-coronavirus measures, reports AFP.
Success in the day-long test — which teenagers spend yearspreparing for — can mean a place in one of the elite colleges seen askey to future careers, incomes, and even marriage prospects.
And the coronavirus epidemic added to the pressure, delaying anddisrupting the school year in the South, forcing all classes online for a time.
The usual scenes of freshmen and juniors gathering at the gates tocheer on their schoolmates as they arrived for the exam were absent onThursday, barred under coronavirus precautions.
At the elite Ewha Girls’ Foreign Language High School many studentsarrived on their own or with their test-taking friends, and someparents seemed more nervous than their children.
“I’m actually quite relieved now that it’s all going to be oversoon,” said 18-year-old Kim Chae-eun.
“This exam is important because Korean society makes you study yourwhole life up till this point for this one exam.”
The South brought its outbreak broadly under control with its“trace, test and treat” approach, but in recent weeks has seen newinfections jump from around 100 a day to more than 500.
By global standards the figure remains extremely low but the risehas alarmed authorities, who have tightened social distancingmeasures.
The exam itself is a particular concern, with nearly 500,000 pupilsgathering in test centres across the country.
Plastic see-through dividers were set up on each desk and studentswere required to wear facemasks throughout the test.
Students were checked on arrival and those showing temperatures of37.5 C or higher — or other coronavirus symptoms — had to take thetest in a separate designated area.
All were advised to refrain from gathering and talking duringbreaks, with exam rooms to be ventilated after each session.
The exam itself was delayed for two weeks due to the earlierdisruptions to teaching, and all high schools across the country havereturned to online classes for a week to try to prevent schoolclusters.
“It will be even more difficult and worrisome to take the exam inthe coronavirus situation,” President Moon Jae-in wrote in a good luckmessage posted on social media. “I’d like to put warm scarves aroundyour necks.”
South Korea pulls out all the stops to ensure the test takers arenot disturbed.
Government offices, businesses and even Seoul’s stock market openedan hour later than usual to reduce traffic and help the studentsarrive on time, and police escorts were available for any running late— no admissions are allowed after the exam begins.
All take-offs and landings at South Korean airports are suspendedfor 35 minutes during an English listening test, when all aircraftalready in the air must maintain an altitude higher than threekilometres.
The transport ministry said 89 flights were rescheduled due to theexam, including 10 international routes.
And there were no concessions for the infected the governmentsaid 35 students who have the virus were due to take the test at thesame time as their classmates, at hospitals or quarantine centres andsupervised by education officials in full personal protectiveequipment.
A government demonstration video showed everything they used —from pencils to the name tag identifying their desk — would bedisposed of as a biohazard afterwards.