It’s time to promote fair competition

South Koreans are all too enthusiastic about their children’s education. They truly believe only academic achievements and a proper school background are the keys to a successful life. Education has long been the driving force behind the nation’s economic success story.

Yet, it is also true that undue passion for education triggers grave side-effects such as runaway spending on private tutoring. Excessive competition among students for college entrance has damaged the spirit of equal educational opportunities.

Recent probes by the Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) demonstrate how students, parents and college officials have collaborated in admissions irregularities. The BAI discovered that nine universities paid a combined sum of 2.9 billion won ($2.5 million) to recruit 72 athletes as freshmen between 2009 and 2011 in violation of a ban on the cash-for-admissions practice.

The state-run inspector also confirmed allegations that parents and sports associations colluded to manipulate students’ performances in sports competitions. In another case, some applicants got admitted to a Seoul-based art college after winning high scores from the school’s professors who gave expensive private lessons to the same students. These examples are just the tip of the iceberg.

More shocking is that over 800 unqualified students entered universities through a special admissions system for disadvantaged students, including children of farmers, fishermen and other low-income earners. Rich parents living in big cities allegedly fabricated their residential registration to be from rural areas and submitted deflated income reports to enable their children to go to college under the system.

The fabrication is unquestionably a criminal act. It deprives qualified applicants of their chances for admission. It also runs counter to the purpose of the special admissions policy that was introduced in 1996 to give more educational opportunities to students of poor families. The system is similar to affirmative action in the United States.

Children of the socially weak can move up to middle and higher classes through education. Regrettably, their social mobility has been blocked as students of rich families who usually get higher scores in college entrance exams with the help of private tutoring. There is no hope if people born rich stay rich, while those born poor stay poor.

Admissions fraud is a strange bedfellow for educational enthusiasm. Korea is not a fair society as long as well-to-do parents continue to abuse the system. It is all the more disappointing to hear that 70 civil servants and teachers were also implicated in the admissions scam. Their love for their children must have blinded them to any sense of ethics and responsibility.

All students and parents must play fair. Education will degrade itself unless it promotes fair competition and equal opportunity. All parties involved in the irregularities should be subject to harsh punishment. We urge the government to set up an oversight mechanism to crack down on dirty players and improve transparency in the admissions process.