By Na Jeong-ju
The state auditor revealed Thursday that at least seven unqualified students entered local colleges between 2009 and 2011 on admission allotments for children of Koreans living abroad.
The students allegedly submitted manipulated records showing the period of overseas residence and academic achievements to gain admissions. In one case, a parent had their children adopted by a foreign missionary and an ethnic Korean to enroll them at prestigious colleges.
The revelation suggests that admission frauds could be rampant under the existing system, introduced in 1977 to give chances to children of Koreans staying overseas to study at local schools.
The education ministry said it has launched a full-scale investigation.
“We are looking into possible fraud cases in cooperation with the country’s immigration office,” a ministry official said on condition of anonymity. “The schools which had admitted such unqualified students will also be investigated because they could have been assisted by the school staff.”
According to the Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI), a number of universities have violated or bypassed admission regulations to accept favored students. Media reports said schools accepted over 860 unqualified students through the government’s special admission systems for the past three years.
About half of them entered on admission allotments for those from farming and fishing villages. Universities must admit students who attended schools located in rural and fishing areas under the ministry’s policy of addressing the educational gap between big cities and provincial communities.
Students from such areas usually account for less than 5 percent of the enrollment quota. Last year, some 15,000 students entered four-year universities under the special admission system.
“Many schools, however, were found to have misused the system to accept unqualified students. We believe that it was aimed at increasing their tuition income,” the official said.
“The problem is that such admission fraud deprives students from the farming and fishing villages of chances to study at prestigious schools. The parents of the students include government officials, professors, lawyers and school teachers.”
The alleged violators include Seoul National, Yonsei, Korea, Sogang and Ewha Womans universities. Korea University was the most serious violator, accepting some 80 unqualified students during the three-year period, according to the BAI.