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[wylies99]

Seoul`s education head in hot water
http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/


Opposition parties and progressive civic groups assailed Seoul City superintendent Kong Jung-tack yesterday over his ties with private educational institutes.
About 70 percent of Kong`s election campaign money came from directors of private institutes such as Jongno M School, a large hagwon franchise with 200 branches, and Soongsil Academy, which runs Soongshil University.

Kong apologized for borrowing money from hagwon during the parliamentary audit of the Seoul metropolitan office of education yesterday.

"As a superintendent who must guide and supervise private institutes, I feel ashamed for having borrowed campaign funds from people affiliated with hagwon," Kong said.


"But I have never dreamed of doing any favors for the lenders as they loaned the money as a relative and as an old student of mine."

Noting that Jongno M School was exempted from the recent crack down on hagwon, Rep. Kwon Young-ghil of the Democratic Labor Party highlighted Kong`s inappropriate connection with the cram school.

The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education conducted an inspection on local cram schools last month as President Lee Myung-bak ordered education authorities to come up with measures to curb skyrocketing hagwon fees.

Rep. Kwon called for an investigation into the superintendent and his resignation, saying Kong`s policies encourage the hagwon business, instead of watching over them.

"Jongno M was left untouched in the inspection against high hagwon fees even when it ran preparatory courses for Daewon and Younghoon Middle Schools," the legislator said.

The two private middle schools in Seoul are slated to start teaching major subjects in both English and Korean from next year. The education authorities said it will ease rules for Daewon and Younghoon so they can change class hours for different subjects. The plan was met with fierce opposition from progressive civic groups who argued it would result in increased spending on private education and excessive competition among elementary schoolchildren.

"Basically, Superintendent Kong represents the private education business," Rep. Kwon said.

"Individuals affiliated with private institutes accounted for 1.8 billion won of the 2.2 billion won Kong used for his election campaign in July."

Kong had borrowed some 700 million won in election campaign funds from two officials of Jongno M -- 500 million from Choi Myung-ok, chief of the Jung-gu branch, and Lee Jae-shik, Kong`s brother-in-law and director of Jongno M. Lee also guaranteed Kong`s bank loan of 800 million won.

Another 300 million won was borrowed from a director of Soongsil Academy.

Each of the Jongno M School branches is owned by a different person but they share the same study materials and a public relations department, which makes Jongno M like one big business, according to Rep. Kwon.

By Kim So-hyun

([email protected])



2008.10.08

[wylies99]

[SHANE02]

Yes I read this too. It's nothing new. The education office has allways been io the take in one way or another, and not just the top guys. The first hakwon I was at would received tip offs from their "man" in the ed. office about upcoming "inspections". We were ordered to take half the students to the gu library on the buses because they weren't registered.

Wasn't this guy appointed by LMB? I'm confused because it said "election." Either way, people who say the govt. is anti hakwon are half right. It just depends on connections as does everything in Korea. Letting some hakwons run "prep courses" for new private English middle schools will make the owners a ton of cash.


This is how the admission will work:


Academic experience, such as book reading, rather than scores of English proficiency tests will be used as admission criteria, the office said. The final stage of the three-part admission process will involve a random draw, without going through an English interview to test language fluency. http://www.korea.net/news/news/newsView.asp?serial_no=20080918030&part=101&SearchDay=&source=Ministry%20of%20Education,%20Science%20and%20Technology

I read another article where it said a percentage of admissions will be at the discretion of principals. These people will be rolling in it too I'd say.

Korea does need more English middle schools however.