S. Korea opens quarantine centres for students sitting college entrance exam

Around 510,000 final-year high school students, about 40% of the total across the country, are scheduled to take the mammoth test, which encompasses subjects ranging from languages to mathematics and science. - AFP

SEOUL (Reuters): South Korea opened Covid-19 quarantine centres on Thursday (Nov 4) to house potentially thousands of teenagers with Covid-19 ahead of the country's gruelling eight-hour college entrance exam in two weeks.

The highly competitive exam, held just once a year, is considered a life-defining event for many high school students, as a degree from a prestigious university is seen as the bare minimum for securing one of the coveted but limited corporate jobs in Asia's fourth-largest economy.