Kim Rahn is the managing editor of The Korea Times. Since joining the company in 2003, she has covered various beats including the presidential office, Seoul city government, the Bank of Korea and the tourism industry. In 2014, she won the Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) award for her coverage of the ordeals of migrant women in Korea.
Informants tip off 8,700 illegal hagwon practices
By Kim Rahn
More than 8,700 illegal activities at private institutes, or “hagwon,” have been reported to the educational authorities since the adoption of a reward system for informants two years ago, it was reported Sunday.
The informants of the illegalities received about 3.4 billion won ($3.2 million).
Since July 2009, informants reported 8,720 illegal actions, according to the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology. About half were false registration, while others included collecting higher tuition than reported and unregistered private tutoring.
The ministry paid the rewards to 1,232 whistleblowers, with 365 of them reporting more than five illegalities, each. About 300,000-500,000 won was given per case on average.
“With only ministry inspectors, we haven’t been able to crack down on this many abuses. We think the reward system is effective,” a ministry official said.
The ministry plans to encourage reporting of unregistered private tutoring and increase the amount of rewards for this, as it is difficult to detect.