The reality of the private education cartel has been revealed… 100 individuals, including 72 current teachers, referred to the prosecution.

Teachers made millions of won creating national university entrance exam problems, with some even directly using these problems in school assessments, shaking the very foundation of public education trust.

According to the National Investigation Headquarters of the National Police Agency on the 17th, 100 individuals have been referred to the prosecution without detention on charges of violating the Anti-Corruption Act and obstructing official duties through coercive means. Among them, the largest group consisted of 72 current teachers, followed by 11 private institute instructors, 9 staff members including institute representatives, and 5 individuals from the Korean Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation, university admission officers, and professors.

They are suspected of creating and selling exam-related questions from 2019 to 2023 in exchange for money.

Current teachers sold questions to private education companies and instructors for amounts ranging from 100,000 to 500,000 won per question, and 2,000,000 to 15,000,000 won for a set of 20 to 30 questions.

The total amount earned from question sales by 47 current teachers reached 4.86 billion won. The teacher who received the most money made over 260 million won, while the instructor who purchased the most questions reportedly paid around 550 million won.

Organized problem leakage and exam question irregularities by teachers

As a result of the investigation, a team of current teachers was found to be responsible for creating and reviewing national exam questions.

They operated a question creation team of 8 members and a question review team involving 9 university students for part-time work, selling 2,946 questions to private education companies and instructors and receiving a total of over 620 million won.

Some teachers were confirmed to have used shadow accounts to evade monitoring by investigative agencies. Even more seriously, there were cases where teachers directly used problems sold to private education companies in school assessments.

Five teachers, including current teacher A, used questions they had previously sold to private companies in their high school assessments. They are suspected of compromising the fairness of school assessments by including 6 to 14 problems in assessments over a maximum period of three years.

Participation of university admission officers and mock exam reviewers

The private education cartel expanded beyond current teachers to include university admission officers. A university admission officer B from a private university in the region guided the self-introduction letters of eight third-year high school students enrolled in a private education company and received 3.1 million won from the company. Additionally, a current teacher who worked as a reviewer for mock exams in June and September was found to have slightly modified the questions to be produced and sold them to a private education company, earning several hundred million won.

The police also confirmed fraudulent activities involving three major private educational organizations. While most instructors engaged in transactions with teachers personally, evidence emerged that some large educational institutes facilitated connections by directly recruiting teachers.

However, no collusion that could be considered cartel behavior was found regarding the "2023 National University Entrance Exam English Question 23," which had raised suspicions of question leakage.

The police conducted searches of question writers and instructors, discovering allegations of obstruction of duty, violations of the Anti-Corruption Act, and solicitation of business embezzlement during the investigation, leading to referrals of relevant individuals to prosecution.

Image source: Reference images for understanding the article / gettyimagesbank, Reference images for understanding the article / news1