Star tutors indicted for buying test questions from teachers
High-profile figures in South Korea’s private education industry are set to stand trial over allegations they illegally obtained exam questions from incumbent school teachers to use in mock college entrance tests and school exams.
The Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office recently indicted popular online tutors Hyun Woo-jin and Cho Jung-sik for alleged violations of the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act. Officials at major cramming schools Daesung Academy and Sidae Injae (SDIJ) were also indicted for the same crimes.
It is believed that the suspects paid school teachers to provide them with questions to be used for school exams, or for mock tests for the state-run college entrance exam, Suneung.
The teachers involved had either made the questions for mock Suneung in the past or had participated in publishing textbooks for the lectures provided by the public Educational Broadcasting System, which is closely linked to the actual Suneung questions.
The two private institutes allegedly had a contract with the teachers to provide questions from 2020 to 2023, with Daesung paying 1.1 billion won ($762,000) and SDIJ paying 700 million won in exchange.
Hyun, a popular lecturer on the online lecture platform Megastudy, has been accused of paying 400 million won for the questions. Another Megastudy lecturer, Cho, supposedly paid 80 million won.
The involved school teachers also face potential charges of illegal solicitation, along with interfering with school business.
Both mock exams and Suneung are created by university professors and school teachers under the supervision of the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation. Participation in the process is limited to those within the public education system.
Mock Suneung exams are held four times a year, while the Suneung itself is administered once each November and is widely regarded as the single most consequential step in Korea’s college admissions process.
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