Coronavirus: South Korean students face double dread in Suneung college entrance exam and pandemic
- About 490,000 Koreans will sit for the annual college entrance exam this year in the hope that their high scores will allow them to enter top universities
- But students are fearful that the infamous Suneung – the Korean abbreviation for the College Scholastic Ability Test – could become a super-spreading event
Seoul student Lee Yeo-jin, 20, has spent the past weeks worrying about the annual college entrance exam on Thursday.
They include 37 coronavirus patients who will take the exam at specially prepared hospital wards, according to the education ministry.
“I am scared of the spreading virus,” said Lee, who sat for the exam last year but failed to enter university. “It has been hard to prepare for this exam.”
The authorities have given strict instructions to ensure that Suneung, which will be conducted in more than 31,000 classrooms across 1,381 test centres, does not become a super-spreading event. Candidates will wear masks for the eight-hour test duration, with desks separated by plastic dividers and spaced further apart with no more than 24 students to a classroom, down from the usual 28.
Test-takers will have their temperatures checked before entering the testing sites and are discouraged from gathering and talking during breaks. They have been told to bring their own food and water and to consume these at their desks, and to dress warmly as windows in the rooms will be opened every so often to ensure the circulation of fresh air.
