Blind students sit 13-hour college entry exam in South Korea

Each November, South Korea involves a standstill for its notorious school entrance examination.

Outlets are shut, flights are delayed to scale back noise, and even the rhythm of the morning commute slows down for the scholars.

By late afternoon, most test-takers stroll out of college gates, exhaling with reduction and embracing the relations ready outdoors.

However not everybody finishes at that hour. Even as soon as darkness has totally settled and night time has set in, some college students are nonetheless within the examination room – ending near 10pm.

They’re the blind college students, who typically spend greater than 12 hours taking the longest model of the Suneung.

On Thursday, greater than 550,000 college students throughout the nation will sit for the Suneung – an abbreviation for School Scholastic Potential Check (CSAT) in Korean. It’s the highest variety of candidates in seven years.

The take a look at not solely dictates whether or not individuals will have the ability to go to college, however can have an effect on their job prospects, earnings, the place they are going to dwell and even future relationships.

Relying on their topic selections, college students reply roughly 200 questions throughout Korean, arithmetic, English, social or pure sciences, a further international language, and Hanja (classical Chinese language characters utilized in Korean).

For many college students, it’s an eight-hour marathon of back-to-back exams. They start the Suneung take a look at at 08:40 and end round 17:40.

Blind college students with extreme visible impairments, nevertheless, are given 1.7 occasions the usual testing period.

Which means in the event that they take the extra international language part, the examination can end as late as 21:48 – almost 13 hours after it started.

There isn’t any dinner break; the examination continues straight by way of.

The bodily bulk of the braille take a look at papers additionally contributes to the size.

When each sentence, image and diagram is transformed into braille, every take a look at booklet turns into six to 9 occasions thicker than the usual equal.

At Seoul Hanbit Faculty for the Blind, 18-year-old Han Donghyun is among the many college students who will take the longest model of the Suneung this yr.

Final yr, there have been 111 blind test-takers nationwide – 99 with low imaginative and prescient and 12 with extreme visible impairments like Dong-hyun – in response to information from the Ministry of Schooling and the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Analysis.

Dong-hyun was born fully blind and can’t distinguish gentle.

When the BBC met him at his faculty on 7 November, his fingers moved shortly throughout a braille observe booklet of previous examination questions.

With only a week left earlier than the take a look at, he was centered on managing his stamina and situation. Dong-hyun will take the examination utilizing braille take a look at papers and a screen-reading laptop.

“It is actually exhausting as a result of the examination is so lengthy,” he mentioned. “However there isn’t any particular trick. I simply comply with my research schedule and attempt to handle my situation. That is the one method.”

Dong-hyun mentioned the Korean language part is especially tough for him.

An ordinary take a look at booklet for that part is about 16 pages – however the braille model is roughly 100 pages lengthy.

Even with screen-reading software program, spoken info disappears as quickly as it’s heard, in contrast to textual content that may be seen and re-read. Dong-hyun has to carry the small print in his reminiscence as he goes.

The arithmetic part is not any simpler.

He should interpret complicated graphs and tables which have been transformed into braille, utilizing solely his fingertips.

Nonetheless, he famous that issues are higher than they was once. Previously, college students needed to do virtually all calculations of their heads. However since 2016, blind test-takers have been allowed to make use of a braille notetaker, referred to as Hansone.

“Identical to sighted college students write out their calculations in pencil, we enter them in braille on the Hansone to comply with the steps,” he mentioned.

One other scholar at Hanbit Faculty for the Blind, 18-year-old Oh Jeong-won, who may even sit the Suneung this yr, mentioned the late afternoon is “the toughest level” of the day.

“Up till lunch, it is manageable,” he mentioned. “However round 4 or 5pm, after English and earlier than Korean Historical past, that is when it will get actually robust.

“There is no dinner break,” he defined. “We’re fixing issues through the time we might usually eat, so it feels much more exhausting. Nonetheless, I hold going as a result of I do know there will probably be a way of accomplishment on the finish.”

For Jeong-won, the fatigue is compounded by the necessity to keep intensely centered with each his fingers and his listening to.

“After I’m studying the braille with my fingers and in addition taking in info by way of audio, it feels rather more tiring than it does for sighted college students,” he mentioned.

However the college students say that the size of the examination and the lengthy research hours should not the toughest half. What’s most difficult is entry to review supplies.

Widespread textbooks and on-line lectures that sighted college students depend on are sometimes out of attain.

There are only a few braille variations, and changing supplies into audio requires having textual content information – that are tough to acquire. In lots of circumstances, somebody has to manually kind out whole workbooks to make them usable.

On-line lectures additionally pose difficulties, as many instructors clarify ideas utilizing visible notes, diagrams and graphics on display, which can’t be adopted by way of audio alone.

Some of the vital boundaries, nevertheless, is the delay in receiving braille variations of the state-produced EBS preparation books – a core set of supplies carefully linked to the nationwide examination.

Due to this delay, blind college students typically obtain the supplies months later than others.

“Sighted college students get their EBS books between January and March and research them for the entire yr,” mentioned Jeong-won. “We obtain the braille information solely round August or September, when the examination is only a few months away.”

Dong-hyun shared the identical concern.

“The braille supplies weren’t accomplished till lower than 90 days earlier than the examination,” he mentioned. “I stored wishing the publication course of might be sooner.”

The Nationwide Institute of Particular Schooling, which produces the braille model of EBS examination supplies, informed the BBC that the method takes not less than three months for every e book as a result of it should comply with related pointers.

The institute added that it’s “making varied efforts to make sure that blind college students can research with out disruption, similar to producing and offering the supplies in separate volumes.”

The Korean Blind Union mentioned it has lengthy raised this problem with authorities, and plans to file a constitutional petition demanding larger accessibility to braille variations of all textbooks.

For these college students, the Suneung is not only a school entrance examination – it is proof of the years they’ve endured to get the place they’re.

Jeong-won described the examination as “perseverance.”

“There’s virtually nothing you are able to do in life with out perseverance,” he mentioned. “I feel this time is a course of of coaching my will.”

Their trainer, Kang Seok-ju, watches college students undergo the examination yearly – and mentioned the blind college students’ endurance is “exceptional”.

“Studying braille means tracing raised dots along with your fingertips. The fixed friction could make their fingers fairly sore,” he identified. “However they do it for hours.”

Mr Kang urged his college students to worth completion relatively than remorse.

“This examination is the place you pour every little thing you have discovered because the first grade right into a single day,” he mentioned. “Many college students really feel disenchanted afterwards, however I simply need them to depart realizing they did what they may.

“The examination shouldn’t be every little thing.”