Fake Credentials Scandal Bombards Private Prep Institutes

Private prep institutes in Seoul have been hit by a fake degree scandal and the ensuing DA probe. Now, other major cities across the nation are taking the heat. DA’s offices and school district authorities in Busan, Daejeon and other major cities are now looking into the institutes in their own regions.

The Busan Police Department, along with the city’s school district authorities, reportedly launched a joint official investigation yesterday to see whether teachers at those institutes have submitted false credentials.

The authorities also plan to verify the credentials of overseas-educated or foreign teachers in close cooperation with the immigration authorities.

The Busan School District warns that it will punish an institute if it transpires that the institute has hired a teacher with fake credentials.

Likewise, the Daejeon Metropolitan Office of Education also confirmed yesterday that it was working on the credentials of institute teachers, who have advertised themselves as prestigious school graduates.

It will dispatch investigators to prep institutes that are suspected of exaggerated advertisements.

Rampant degree forgery-

The Seoul Songpa Police Station told the press yesterday that it looked into the credentials of 31 teachers, and two of them were discovered to have submitted faked degrees.

The police, for example, fined a woman, whose identity is known only by her last name “Lee.” Lee forged a document to pass for an accounting graduate of a prestigious university.

The authorities unearthed another forgery case. A math teacher, “Kim,” who got fined for the same crime two years ago, got apprehended again.

“Our sources tipped us that some owners of the prep institutes talked their teachers into forgery. We will also look into this matter,” a police officer informed.

Prep institutes on pins and needles -

Prep institutes are holding their breath, watching the widening investigation by the authorities.

Most institutes have already begun to take measures to verify their employees’ credentials. They reportedly plan not to hire new teachers for some time to come.

A prestigious institute in Seoul complained, “We have taken whatever steps necessary to verify our credentials. Universities refused to cooperate with us in most cases. They cited privacy as the main ground for the refusal.”

Another owner in Seoul pleads, “We have toughened up our verification procedures. Basically, we are not tempering-proof, though. We have no legal authority.”

The ripple effects of the scandal are also wreaking havoc on students and their parents. A high school senior’s parent confessed, “We rely more on how a teacher teaches, than on what school she went to. But we cannot leave our kids to teachers who lied about their credentials. The Korean SAT is just around the corner. What if my kid gets hurt?”