By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter
A star lecturer, who is under investigation over Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) leak cases, has been found to have lied about his academic credentials.
Jeffrey Sohn, who is suspected of having divulged SAT questions, introduced himself as having a Ph.D. degree in politics from Columbia University, while teaching at private institutes in affluent Gangnam, southern Seoul.
However, the American university said it doesn't have Sohn on its list of graduates, noting he used to be a student at the School of Continuing Education.
He is suspected of having offered students taking the SAT the questions before they took the test. Police have banned him from leaving the country while they investigate further.
The 39-year-old lecturer allegedly taught English composition to more than 1,000 students hoping to advance to U.S. universities. He is reputed for picking the right questions for students, who subsequently score well on the SAT, and earned more than 2 billion won a year.
When he was trying to leave his former work place, Recas Academy for another academy last December, the hagwon owner kidnapped and beat him up.
According to police, the owner of the institute forced him not to move to the other cram school that offered better conditions. Recas also has been sued for plagiarizing about 30 SAT test prep books published by an American institute, Elite Educational Institute, and police are still investigating this matter.
In the meantime, Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office has indicted another lecturer on charges of attempting to smuggle SAT question sheets out of a test center abetted by three college students, without detention.
The SAT lecturer, identified by his surname Jang and the three students, who were hired by the instructor, tore out sheets of the test or typed questions into a scientific calculator four times between last October and January this year. The hired collegians were paid 100,000 won each time.
The SAT test provider ETS strictly forbids the disclosure of SAT test papers but it has had problems involving test leaks and cheating. It holds the college admission tests in Korea at 22 venues, seven times a year.
More and more Koreans are heading to the U.S. for higher education and Korea sends the third largest number of students to colleges there. Last year, the U.S. saw a total of 69,124 Korean students at higher education institutes.
Despite a series of its test-related problems, ETS is under fire for a lack of measures to deal with them.
Basically, it appears to be approaching this issue as an isolated affair, although, in the latest case, there was an international link between Thailand and Korea, when a lecturer received questions from SAT tests conducted in Thailand hours earlier and passed them along to two Korean test-takers in the United States taking advantage of time difference.