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wylies99
Joined: 13 May 2006
Location: I'm one cool cat!
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 Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2008 1:45 am Post subject: Fines slapped on six hagwon |
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Fines slapped on six hagwon
http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/
Six hagwon franchises, including Wall Street Institute Korea, were slapped with fines yesterday for misrepresenting fees or issuing false ads.
The Korean Fair Trade Commission ordered them to pay a total of 167 million won in fines, a month after President Lee Myung-bak called for measures to curb excessive hagwon fees.
Five hagwon chains specializing in preparing students for admission to elite high schools were found to have coerced its offline students to take online courses as well.
A Ferma Edu branch in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, for instance, charges 88,000 won for an offline math course for eighth graders. But it required students signing up for its offline lessons to pay for its 182,000-won online courses as well.
Wall Street Institute Korea advertised a three-month course that did not exist for 1.55 million won to delude students to think it was giving a 46 percent discount for its nine-month program at 2.49 million won, the FTC said.
Four other hagwon issued false ads saying they had the largest number of elite high school students.
Some 66,421 people were found to be paying for lessons at 168 branches of the six chains - Ferma Edu, Topia Education, JLS, Yes Youngdo and Koreapolyschool - which teach elementary through high school students, and WSI which teaches adults English.
By Kim So-hyun
([email protected])
2008.10.28 |
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bassexpander
Joined: 13 Sep 2007
Location: Someplace you'd rather be.
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| Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2008 2:12 am Post subject: |
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Wow... I know some people working in those schools!
Mums the word, unless they want to talk about it (I'd advise not). |
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SHANE02
Joined: 04 Jun 2003
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| Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2008 2:21 am Post subject: |
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I'm guessing the schools that "lent" money to the head of the Seoul Education Office went unchecked.  |
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Whirlwind
Joined: 03 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2008 9:32 am Post subject: |
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| Wow, six whole schools! |
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Frankly Mr Shankly
Joined: 13 Feb 2008
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| Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2008 12:32 pm Post subject: |
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| Whirlwind wrote: |
| Wow, six whole schools! |
Six franchises, not schools. These places are huge. Wonder what the guys at Seoul.com who think that foreign teachers are to blame for all the woes in the country (never mind the esl scene) will have to say about this? Korean are so the kind? |
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hari seldon
Joined: 05 Dec 2004
Location: Incheon
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| Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2008 1:02 pm Post subject: |
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| The schools are being fined for false advertising, not excessive fees. |
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PaperTiger
Joined: 31 May 2005
Location: Ulaanbataar
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| Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2008 1:39 pm Post subject: |
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| The insinuation there is that those six schools didn't pay their bribes the easy way, so now they're doing it the hard way. "Fighting corruption in English institutes"...you REALLY think that's an actual priority for the Korean government? |
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