By Bahk Eun-ji
Officials at two international schools forged documents to grant admission to unqualified students, the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education (SMOE) said Monday.
SMOE ordered Seoul's Younghoon International Middle School and Daewon International Middle School to punish faculty members involved in admission corruption, while referring 11 officials to the prosecution.
Officials of Younghoon, including its vice principal and the head of the admission department, falsified admission test records by applicants for the academic year of 2013 to grant enrollment to some unqualified students.
The school was also found to have violated rules when grading the test papers of applicants by not following the blind grading system and scrapping score cards in breach of its obligation to keep them on record for several years for reference.
At Daewon school, three officials will face disciplinary measures for granting admission to five unqualified students in 2010 by tampering with the admission process, according to the education office.
SMOE, however, said it has no plan to shut down the school, out of concern for the 500 students attending the Younghoon School. According to Elementary and Secondary Education Act, specialized schools including Younghoon, have to be evaluated by their management every five years, and if the schools fail to meet their establishment’s objectives as set out on the evaluation, the Ministry of Education can cancel the authorization.
“It’s hard to say that Younghoon International Middle School can’t fulfill its role as a school at this point, because there are still many things that need to be investigated by the prosecution,” said Cho Seung-hyun, auditor of SMOE during the press conference.
Controversy ignited over the schools' admission process after the son of Lee Jae-yong, vice chairman of Samsung Electronics, was accepted to Younghoon last December under the non-financial special consideration category. Lee was divorced in 2009. It is not known whether Lee's son was unqualified in terms of his test score.