This photo, provided by the Seoul Nambu Correctional Institution, shows a math class in progress for students of Mandela Boys’ School. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
SEOUL, Nov. 13 (Korea Bizwire) — When nearly half a million students sit down across the country for the all-important once-a-year college entrance exam this week, a group of 10 teenage inmates will join the test in their separate test room set up behind bars.
The exam takers are students of Mandela Boys’ School, the first ever academic school inside a prison in South Korea, which opened in March to educate young inmates aged 14-17 so as to help them better integrate into society and lower crime rates.
One of the school’s classrooms at the Nambu Correctional Institution compound on Seoul’s southwestern fringe will be transformed into a strictly-regulated test room for the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) set for Thursday.
Like all other test rooms, all letter signs and national flag images will be blocked out and the clock will be removed to prevent any possibility of cheating.
On the exam day, test papers will be delivered from the education ministry via a police-escorted truck, and seven official test supervisors will be brought in from outside to oversee the testing.
The nine-hour, five-session CSAT is the culmination of years of hard work for many students, which can determine one’s university entrance and career path.
This photo, taken Nov. 7, 2023, shows the entrance of Mandela Boys’ School in the Nambu Correctional Institution compound on Seoul’s southwestern fringe. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
The Mandela school aims to ensure that students’ time in prison is not wasted and that they envision a future beyond their criminal past by pursuing fresh opportunities through the CSAT and subsequent higher education.
“When they reenter society with a stronger academic background, it can pave the way for a life beyond the criminal path,” said Kim Jong-han, Nambu prison’s civil affairs director, who doubles as the prison school’s head.
“New opportunities can be created if these students spend their time studying and move on to enroll at a university to pursue majors they want after their discharge.”
The school took its name from Nelson Mandela, a former president of South Africa, for his famous saying: “The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
When it opened in March with about 40 students, the school initially did not expect them to do well enough to try this year’s college entrance exam. In the official school diploma equivalency tests in August, 27 of the 31 students tested passed for a high school diploma and two others earned a middle school diploma.
Written in this sign at the entrance of Mandela Boys’ School is a famous quotation from former president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela: “The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
A preparatory class for the CSAT was launched shortly later with 10 aspiring students out of the 27 high school diploma earners. The classmates range from those with three-year sentences for sexual crimes to a convict serving a 15-year term, the heaviest sentence allowed for underage criminals.
One of them wishes to major in veterinary science, another in Korean medicine.
Now, four outside university students are tutoring the students for the upcoming CSAT as volunteers in addition to the school’s six-member faculty consisting of prison officers with a teacher’s license.
Eager for higher marks, the students go far beyond the regular 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. school hours, engaging in additional studying from early morning to late at night and also during the weekends. They have also quit reading adult magazines to create a better academic environment.
“As far as I know, there had been cases of individuals taking the CSAT in prison in the past. It is the first time an official CSAT test room will be installed in the prison,” Kim said.
He added that two more adult inmates from outside Nambu prison will take the college entrance exam as prisoners on Thursday.
Four of the 10 underage CSAT takers are expected to be discharged next year. The others, if their test results are high enough to qualify them for college entrance, would be transferred to different correctional facilities to pursue distance academic courses for a college diploma, Kim noted.
“They at first hadn’t even considered the opportunity to try the CSAT, saying ‘can convicts like me take the test and go to college?’” he said.
“Now they have high expectations and express disappointment after realizing how challenging the exam really is. I encourage them to ‘keep working hard. Students outside spend six to seven years preparing for this exam. It would be unrealistic to expect to catch up in just two months.’”
Over the long run, the Mandela school plans to expand the CSAT preparation class to have up to 20 inmate students take the exam annually.
(Yonhap)
