ed Admission fraud

A month-long special audit by the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education (SOME) has shown that two international middle schools in Seoul ― Younghoon and Daewon ― are a hotbed of corruption and irregularities. Younghoon, in particular, shocked the nation by demonstrating there was rampant fraud in its 2013 admission test.

The severity of wrongdoings associated with admission and school operation is beyond imagination. It’s shameful even to say these two schools ― which were established in 2009 ― were intended to nurture global leaders.

According to the results of the audit, officials at Younghoon, including its vice principal and head of the admission department, tampered with documents to grant admission to unqualified students. Specifically, they purposely inflated or deflated the applicants’ scores on the subjective section that includes self-development essays and teachers’ references.

The result was that three of the six students whose scores were altered after the first objective section were admitted to the school ultimately. On the contrary, Younghoon purposely gave the lowest mark in the second phase to students categorized as ``inappropriate,’’ although they fared well in the first stage. What’s most lamentable is that the school divided applicants into two groups ― ``appropriate’’ and ``inappropriate’’ ― based on meetings with their parents. At Daewon, three officials are to face disciplinary actions for granting admission to five unqualified students in 2010 in violation of the admission process.

Both schools are suspected of violating basic admission rules. For example, they didn’t follow the obligatory blind grading system in screening applicants’ documents and scrapped admission scores in breach of their obligation to keep them for at least three years, in what appeared to be an attempt to cover up admission fraud.

The education office asked the prosecution to probe 11 Younghoon staffers and ordered the school foundation to dismiss 10 others. But it didn’t reveal if there were any backdoor dealings between school officials and parents and this investigation will be left to prosecutors. The special audit into the two schools began in early March after the son of Lee Jae-yong, vice chairman of Samsung Electronics, was accepted to Younghoon through a special screening process reserved for those with disadvantaged backgrounds.

Given that fairness is the most important element in school admissions, the vast irregularities inherent in our international middle schools must be addressed strictly and those responsible for them should be penalized harshly. Education authorities also need to carefully consider the question of terminating the international middle schools that have turned into institutions only for the privileged.