Foreign schools unsupervised
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Monitoring, punishment key to fight admissions corruption
By Kwon Ji-youn
A lack of supervision and lenient punishments are the main causes of recurring admission scandals at international schools, experts say.
“The first problem to address is the educational authorities’ way of approaching the issue,” Park Yi-sun, vice president of the National Association of Parents for Cham (Good) Education, told The Korea Times.
“It needs systematic management,” Park said, “Last year, when a similar problem arose, the laws were set in stone, but they’re still neglected.”
Last month, the prosecution indicted 10 people, including six parents, a foreign school admissions officer and a broker for their alleged involvement in illegal admissions of Korean students to foreign schools in Incheon and Gyeonggi Province.
Among the accused is TV actress Park Sang-ah, who is married to the second son of former President Chun Doo-hwan. She is suspected of having her two children admitted to a foreigner-only school with forged documents.
In a separate case last month, the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education discovered that eight of 19 foreign schools in the city admitted 163 students who did not meet admissions requirements. The office asked the schools to expel the students before June.
According to statistics announced by the education office, Xavier International School admitted 91 students who did not meet requirements.
Overseas Chinese Middle and High School and Yeong Deng Pou Korea Chinese Primary School, both located in Seoul, followed with 48 students and 10 students, respectively.
A Global Christian Foreign School (GCFS) staffer told The Korea Times that the problem is not bound within the school’s walls.
“There are various situational and institutional problems that cause schools to accept students who do not meet the requirements,” she said.
“Problematic situations also apply to staffers here at GCFS. It’s not just a one dimensional problem. I think the institutional aspects have heavy influences on the system.”
Yeong Deng Pou Korea Chinese Primary School, one of the schools denounced for illegal admissions, admitted to the accusations, but claimed that it was unavoidable.
Former Chinese school teacher Hu Wen-ai said that “it was difficult to fill spots in classes.”
“At first, we began accepting students (who did not meet the requirements) one by one, but rumors started spreading.”
Hu said that “the school will probably send them off to Korean schools because that’s what the education office wants, despite anything we say.”
In Korea, there are 51 international schools for non-Korean students living in the country.
Students who wish to be admitted to foreign schools must be children of foreigners or Koreans who have lived abroad for at least three years in total. Admission is also permitted to those students who have one foreign parent.
Rep. Yoo Ki-hong of the main opposition Democratic Party expressed his intent to revise the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, in hopes of imposing sanctions on the offending foreign schools.
“Foreign schools are considered et cetera schools in education acts. Therefore they lie in a dead zone, where control is difficult,” said Yoo at a policy conference. “Admission and educational management needs to be controlled.”