Police conclude teacher leaked exam questions to twin daughters
An officer at Suseo Police Station in southern Seoul shows items confiscated as evidence in an exam leak case at Sookmyung Girls' High School, Monday. The police concluded a teacher there leaked questions on five occasions to his twin daughters attending the same school who memorized the answers before the exams. /Korea Times photo by Bae Woo-han
By Jung Hae-myoung
Police concluded Monday that a teacher at Sookmyung Girls' High School leaked exam questions multiple times to his twin daughters who attended the same school.
Wrapping up the two-month investigation and disclosing confiscated material as evidence, Suseo Police Station referred the case to the prosecution, recommending it indict all three.
The police said the father copied midterm and final exam papers from June 2017 to July this year, meaning the cheating took place consistently since the first semester's final exams in the twins' freshman year.
The twins' notes and flashcards with the answers to the finals in all subjects for this year's first semester, as well as a list of answers scribbled on a copy of actual exam papers were shown as evidence. For physics, the twins only wrote the answer to a question without writing out how they solved it.
One of the twins also had answers to an English exam on her mobile phone. She claimed she wrote them after the test to check on them after the test, but the digital forensics team found they were entered before the exam.
The police discovered that the father went to the school on nights that the midterm and final exam papers for this year's first semester were stored in an office, but did not leave any official record of going in to work.
The father, who has persistently denied the charges, was detained Nov. 6. The twins avoided this because they are minors, but police asked prosecutors to indict them.
They also told regional education authorities to give clearer guidelines to schools about security for the exam compilation procedure ― from deciding on questions, printing and storage of test papers, and grading system.
Suspicions of the leak emerged after the twin sisters received top grades on their school's final exam in July.
Contrary to the sudden improvement, the twins' scores in a mock exam for the College Scholastic Ability Test were low during the same period, according to a report disclosed by Rep. Kim Hae-young of the Democratic Party of Korea.
The twins applied to leave the school Nov. 1, in an apparent move to avoid disciplinary measures, but the school did not allow this as the investigation was ongoing. The school board is expected to dismiss their father soon.
Parents of Sookmyung students are calling for their expulsion and the nullifying their grades rather than letting them leave voluntarily.