Gimpo Foreign Language High School Faces Re-Examinations

It has been confirmed that half of all this year’s Gimpo Foreign Language High School entrance examination questions were circulated among students prior to the examination.

Accordingly, a re-examination is very much likely to occur, and eight other Gyeonggi Province foreign language high schools might face re-examinations because they shared some of the examination questions.

Yesterday, the National Police Agency’s Special Criminal Investigation Division requested an arrest warrant for Principal Kwak (42) of a cram school located in Mok-dong, Yangcheon-gu, Seoul, and Deputy Principal Eom (43, Female), for interference of duty. The suspects are alleged to have conspired with a Gimpo Foreign Language High School teacher to obtain entrance examination problems to distribute to students attending his institute.

Police also received an arrest warrant for Mr. Lee (51), chief of Entrance and Public Affairs of the school, for leaking the problems. Mr. Lee has not been heard from since November 7.

According to the police, Mr. Lee received a phone call from Principal Kwak, who asked him to give him the examination problems one day prior to the examination at around 9:50 p.m. October 29. Lee allegedly e-mailed him 38 problems out of the 80 on the exam to Mr. Kwak.

Police assume that Mr. Lee saved the problems to a laptop computer while printing the problems from a USB drive picked up by the schoolmaster at a meeting of the “Joint Question Drafting Committee for the Foreign Language High School General Entrance Examination” held around 6:00 p.m. on the same day.

Police say Principal Kwak printed 13 out of 38 received questions on A4 size paper and distributed them to his students in the academy’s bus while on the way to the exam location on the day of the examination.

Police are also investigating the suspects’ bank accounts and e-mail accounts in order to verify whether Mr. Lee handed the problem sets to other private academies, and whether there were any money transfers between them.

The Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education said that a re-entrance examination is essentially unavoidable at this point, and that it is considering extra measures to deal with the situation, as the scope of the problem is looking larger than first anticipated.

Eight other Gyeonggi area Foreign Language High Schools used exam questions from the same pool, and re-examinations may be necessary for other Foreign Language High Schools as well.

Consequently, there is concern about potential confusion in the Gyeonggi area regarding ordinary high school entrance exams that are scheduled for today.

Current regulations say that students who are admitted by Foreign Language High Schools cannot apply for ordinary high schools. If students who were accepted to Gimpo Foreign Language High School take a re-entrance examination and fail the exam, they will have difficulty entering high school this year.

A Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education personnel officer said, “We are considering all courses of action, including re-examinations, and we are receiving legal advice. We will do our best to minimize the damage to students.”

However, no matter what the office decides, it is expected that already accepted students and parents would protest strongly and take legal actions.

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