South Korea is taking steps to bring artificial intelligence into one of the world’s most competitive education systems, with plans to eventually apply AI grading technology to its high-stakes national university entrance exam, Suneung.

The Ministry of Education revealed its vision during a recent closed-door policy briefing to the Presidential Committee on Policy Planning. According to local news outlet Newsis on Friday, officials outlined a long-term roadmap to introduce AI-based evaluation methods across the education system, including for the Suneung, which is taken by nearly half a million students each year.

The ministry’s plan begins with applying AI to grade written-response assessments in school settings. These include descriptive answers and essay-type questions, which South Korean educators have been gradually planning to expand in place of traditional multiple-choice formats. The Ministry stated it will review the impact of AI grading in classrooms before considering its application to Suneung.

Although AI will not be used in the national exam anytime soon, the direction is clear. The ministry said it is aiming for a system that strengthens students' critical thinking and creativity without increasing teachers’ workloads or fueling disputes over grading fairness.

AI is expected to help by standardizing scores on subjective responses, which many educators say are hard to grade consistently. In South Korea’s fiercely competitive education environment, where even small score differences can determine a student’s future, public trust in grading fairness is critical.

As part of its long-term goals, the ministry is also considering an AI-powered question-generation and validation system for Suneung. This would help ensure that questions are original and sufficiently distinct from one another, reducing errors and improving test quality.

The policy builds on an earlier reform announced in 2023, when the ministry confirmed that from 2028, high school exams would increasingly move away from multiple-choice questions toward problem-solving and reasoning-based formats. South Korea is known to be the only OECD member country that relies exclusively on multiple-choice questions in its high-stakes national exams for high school graduation and university entrance.

Meanwhile, the first pilot program using AI grading will launch this July in Gyeonggi Province. The regional education office there plans to test the system on first-year middle and high school students in Korean language, social studies, and science classes.