College Students Also Involved in Exam Cheating

A total of 141 students from six high schools in Gwangju were found to be involved in cheating on the national college entrance exam using mobile phones, and police on Monday arrested six students accused of stage-managing an elaborate cheating scheme.

Lee Chang-han, the warrant-issuing judge of Gwangju District Court, revealed that he issued arrest warrants for six students involved in the scheme including a student, known as, Bae, 19, from “S” high school, after conducting a corpus delicti examination.

Mr. Lee said, “According to the answers stored in 55 cell phones confiscated by the police and text messages, we have enough evidence to arrest them. If they were freed, it is possible for them to plot to destroy the evidence and flee the police with others involved in the scheme. So, I issued the warrants.”

The police are planning to seek arrest warrants on Tuesday for another six, including a student, known as Y, 18, from C high school, who were arrested without warrants for the same charge.

The Gwangju Dongbu Police Station in charge of this case reported the results of its investigations on Monday, confirming that a total of 141 students from six high schools in the Gwangju area were involved.

Those who were accused are 22 who went to same middle and high school, who played a main role, 39 good-grade students, also known as “players,” 37, including seven university students, who acted as “middlemen,” 42 students known as “beneficiaries,” and one university student who lent his ID and opened a banking account.

Kim Young-wol, the head of the investigation team at the Dongbu Police Station, said, “Those students met for the first time at a high school in Gwangju last September and conspired a scam. They received money, between 300,000 and 900,000 won, from each “beneficiary,” collecting a total of 20.85 million won, and even carried out mock drills in preparation for the real exam.”

“Some rumors on the internet are going around, saying there were similar illegal acts in last year’s state-run exam. However, we have not found any clues that confirm those accusations,” said the police, making clear they have no intention to investigate those accusations.

The Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development decided to introduce countermeasures to prevent illegal acts in future college entrance exams following meetings with deputy superintendents of 16 cities and provinces scheduled on Tuesday, ones with the Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs, the Ministry of Information and Communication, the Korea Institute of Curriculum and Evaluation (KICE), and the National Police Agency on Wednesday, and superintendents meetings.

The Education Ministry also decided to ban cheaters on the national college entrance exam from applying for the test for three years, a regulation scrapped in 1998.

The Ministry is considering strengthening supervision of the exam by installing devices including metal detectors to technically prevent cheating, expanding the number of exam supervisors, and verifying forms of exam papers.

Kwon Kim In-Chul Lee goqud@donga.com inchul@donga.com