THE ESSENTIALS IN 30 SECONDS

  • The Ministry of Education said on October 29 it will seek criminal investigations, on charges such as obstructing official duties by deception, against students who cheat with AI glasses.
  • It wants to extend the ban on retaking the CSAT from one year to up to three years, a change that JoongAng Daily says requires amending the Higher Education Act.
  • For the November 19 exam, one specialist will be posted at each of the 1,312 test sites to check suspected smart glasses.

South Korea's Ministry of Education announced on October 29 that students caught using AI-powered smart glasses on the national college entrance exam, the CSAT, will be pursued through the criminal justice system and not only through exam rules. The announcement comes three weeks before this year's test, scheduled for November 19.

From exam sanctions to criminal referrals

Under the plan reported by Yonhap via The Korea Times and by JoongAng Daily, the ministry will file complaints or request police investigations against such students, mainly on charges of obstructing official duties by deceptive means. Seoul Economic Daily adds that obstruction of business is also being considered. The ministry describes this kind of cheating as a deliberate, organised attempt to disrupt a national examination. As a precedent, the reports point to a 2005 scheme in which candidates exchanged answers by mobile phone, which ended in an eight-month prison term suspended for two years.

The ministry also wants to lengthen the ban on sitting the CSAT again from one year to as many as three. According to JoongAng Daily, that requires amending the Higher Education Act, so it cannot apply to this month's exam. The ministry will also urge universities to apply equally tough sanctions in their own essay tests and interviews.

What changes on exam day

The new announcement builds on rules already in place. Smart glasses were added to the list of banned items in July, and the 2027 CSAT guidelines published by the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation (KICE) on October 15 classify wearing them as cheating: that year's scores are voided and the student is barred from the next exam. Merely carrying them into the room voids the session.

For November 19, JoongAng Daily reports that 1,312 specialists will be stationed at the country's 1,312 test sites, one per site, to judge whether a suspicious device is a pair of smart glasses. Hard cases will be escalated to response teams at regional education offices, the ministry and KICE.

Open questions

Detection remains the weak point. The ministry is evaluating signal detectors under development at a specialised institution and says they could reach test centres from next year at the earliest, if they prove practical. Recent cases at Yonsei University and the University of Seoul, reported by The Herald Business, involved candidates who switched to smart glasses partway through an exam, and Yonsei's proctors had received only about an hour of training on spotting them.