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[garykasparov]

Hagwon in Cahoots With Public Schools

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/nation_view.asp?newsIdx=20859&categoryCode=117

By Bae Ji-sook
Staff Reporter

Leakages of test kits for public school revealed shady ``connections'' between teachers at schools and private tutoring institutes.

A private tutoring institute teacher in southern Seoul is being questioned by police on suspicion that he leaked questions for the high school scholastic ability test last week. He is denying the allegation, arguing that public school test makers copied the questions from his reference book.

The allegations first emerged when a group of high school students said about 19 math questions on the nationwide test held last Tuesday were almost identical to those in a mock test drawn up by a hagwon teacher in Daechi-dong, southern Seoul. The test was given to the hagwon students in February.

The suspect alleged that some of the test makers were his friends. He said he told them at a private meeting about the test kit he had created, in which his friends showed great interest. The hagwon teacher said he would sue them.

However, civic groups suspect inappropriate connections between the two, claiming the hagwon received promotion by the test leakage, despite the ongoing criminal investigation.

They called for tougher steps to stem shady deeds between schools and hagwon. The suspected hagwon teacher is a former schoolteacher. Certain hagwon teachers with school teaching careers are suspected of maintaining improper connections with their former colleagues.

Despite the Gimpo Foreign Language High School test paper leakage scandal in November, civic groups claim these kinds of connections are still in place.

The Korean Teachers and Educational Workers' Union said Sunday that tighter regulations are needed to prevent public education from being influenced by private education. The government has already banned incumbent schoolteachers from attending hagwon events, but the union alleged that those with personal connections always find loopholes.

Seoul's impending bill revision to allow hagwon to run 24-hours a day was also the alleged result of hagwon owners' lobbying.

A council member on condition of anonymity said there was intensive lobbying from hagwon owners. He told The Korea Times that there was little talk about providing quality education to students, but rather concerns about business.

Chung Yaun-hee, head of the council's educational committee, had once run a private cram school, which could have affected the committee's deregulating, he claimed.

The Conservative New Right Teachers' Union also suggested that these private institutes' influence is now everywhere. ``Public education, which should be respected, is being humiliated by a few private educators who do not care about the real purpose of education, but just money,'' a spokesman from the union said.

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[Chicoloco]

[ernie]

i think it should be the test-makers who leaked the exam, not the hagwon owner who should be charged... the hagwon owner hasn't signed a confidentiality agreement, the test-makers have (i assume)... even if he paid for the test, i still don't think he's done anything illegal, unless there is a law against preparing students too well for tests (who knows in this country?)

[Saxiif]

This might be more incompetance than leaking. According to my wife (who used to teach low level middle school kids English to get them ready for school tests) the schools give almost exactly the same questions year after year and are VERY predictable.