100 caught illegally entering foreign schools

By Yun Suh-young

About 100 students in Gyeonggi Province were caught illegally enrolled in foreign schools in the province.

The students did not meet the eligibility criteria to be enrolled in the schools because they did not have foreign citizenship or meet the qualification for the number of years they must reside overseas.

Under the current law on foreign schools, only students who have foreign citizenship or have lived for three years overseas or those who have a parent who is a foreigner are eligible to apply.

Out of the nine foreign schools the Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education investigated last month, two of the Chinese language foreign schools were caught violating the rules. The two were in Suwon and Uijeongbu.

The students caught illegally enrolled will be transferred to other schools near their homes. However, the education office said it will try not to impede on their rights to study.

There were no students caught for illegal enrollment in the remaining seven English language foreign schools.

“There weren’t any additional cases of students caught in the English language foreign schools because there was already data acquired by the prosecution during an inspection last November,” said an official at the education office.

In November last year, seven parents of students attending foreign schools were detected and charged for violating the Nationality Act.

The education office plans to regularly check the admission of foreign students starting this year to crack down on illegal admissions.