A group of South Korean students is taking legal action against the government after their college admission examination concluded 90 seconds earlier than scheduled.
Seeking compensation of 20 million won ($15,400; £12,000) each – equivalent to the cost of a year’s study to retake the exam – the students argue that the premature end affected the entire examination process for all students.
The country’s challenging college admission test, known as Suneung, spans eight hours with consecutive papers covering multiple subjects.
The stakes are notably high, as the exam determines university placements, job prospects, and even future relationships.
To aid student concentration, various measures, such as closing the country’s airspace and delaying the stock market’s opening, are implemented during this annual event.
Results for this year’s exam were released on December 8. The lawsuit, filed by at least 39 students on Tuesday, alleges that the bell rang early at a test site in Seoul during the Korean language section, the first subject of the exam.
Despite immediate protests from some students, supervisors reportedly collected their papers.
The mistake was acknowledged by teachers before the next session, and the additional time was granted during the lunch break. However, students could only fill in blank columns on their papers and were not permitted to alter existing answers.
Feeling distressed, the students claimed that the incident disrupted their focus for the remainder of the exam, with some reportedly abandoning the test and returning home.
Their lawyer, Kim Woo-suk, stated that education authorities had not issued an apology.
Officials, as reported by public broadcaster KBS, mentioned that the supervisor overseeing the specific test center had misread the time.
This incident echoes a similar case in April, where a Seoul court awarded 7 million won ($5,250; £4,200) to students who asserted that an early bell disadvantaged them during the 2021 Suneung exam by about two minutes.
Instances of premature bell ringing have occurred in other countries as well. In 2012, a man in China received a one-year suspended sentence for ringing the bell four minutes and 48 seconds early during the national college entrance exam in Hunan province.
