Improper admission

By Hong Choong-bum

The same old story surfaced again.

According to a recent report, Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education said that it will launch a special investigation into Younghoon International Middle School regarding allegations of admission fraud involving conglomerates and elite families.

Allegedly, the son of a divorced heir of the country’s biggest conglomerate was accepted into the school last year under the category of "special consideration”. We don’t exactly know yet what kind of secret deals were made between the International Middle School and the elite families.

The school in northern school has been accused of taking about 20 million won from some parents whose children had failed to enter the school when it was trying to fill vacancies.

Whenever such an irregularity is disclosed, the public’s curiosity and outrage is focused on ― and only on ― those whose illegal dealings have been unluckily brought to light. So they condemn the concerned schools and individuals who were implicated in the scam and their main concern is for justice to be served on them. Unfortunately, it does not take a few days for our minds to wander away from the details of such a scam, and focus on business as usual. Chances are that the X School scandal, too, will fade into oblivion sooner than expected.

It remains to be seen how things will develop further as the investigation into the school proceeds. But as we know the outcome might be similar to previous similar scandals; punishment for those involved is expected to be nothing more than a slap on the wrist, given the power and clout of such people in our society.

However, a serious question remains: what about other international schools? Are they as clean as they claim to be? And what about other high level government officials and people in the so-called elite group of our society who fortunately got away because they made more clandestine and tougher deals with those schools that are safe from public scrutiny?

In fact, the people of the school that have allegedly been involved in the admission-related impropriety may complain that they are not the only ones that admitted students in an improper way and that they are becoming a scapegoat for other international schools which can be just as guilty.

And individuals who are facing criticism for buying their children an admission ticket to the schools might complain that there are many others who should also be investigated but who are nevertheless walking free.

A core thing which has caused this kind of improper dealing is the practice of currying favor which is still prevalent among the elite in our society. This kind of practice is so rampant and intricately woven into the entire system-political, social and even academic ― that it takes a complete overhaul of our society, especially of the elite group to be able to bring to light the many hidden irregularities.

The government of President Park Geun-hye claims that it is seeking to be a clean and fair government. However, if it really wants to prove this, it will have to show among others that its judiciary net, thrown into the sea of academia, is fine enough to catch both small and big fish.

Only then, will the irregularities involving the school admissions disappear and a clean and fair Korea will be realized.

The writer worked as a supply chain manager of Adidas Group Korea. His email address is calista21@naver.com.