Sent to Prosecution for Violation of Anti-Graft Law
69 People Indicted...24 Sent in First Batch
An active high school teacher was referred to the prosecution on charges of violating the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act after producing thousands of private exam questions related to the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) for over four years and selling them to large private academies, receiving about 250 million KRW. This is the first time the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act has been applied to the sale of exam questions by active teachers.
The National Police Agency’s National Investigation Headquarters (NIH) announced on the 22nd that through the investigation of the "private education cartel," a total of 69 people were booked, and 24 were referred to prosecution in the first round. Five were not prosecuted, and investigations are ongoing for 40 others.
The NIH is investigating 24 cases related to the private education cartel. These are divided into five cases requested by the Ministry of Education, 17 cases requested by the Board of Audit and Inspection, and two cases based on their own intelligence. Among the first group referred to prosecution, the suspects are categorized by crime type as 14 for question sales, one for question leakage, and 19 for qualification violations, with 10 individuals facing overlapping charges.
All 24 individuals are active teachers working at high schools located in Seoul. Among the total 69 suspects, 46 are active teachers (including two who retired after committing the crimes), 17 are academy affiliates (including six instructors), and six others. The six others include four officials from the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation (KICE) and one admissions officer.
According to the NIH, a teacher A at a high school in Seoul produced and provided thousands of private CSAT-related questions to large private academies from April 2019 to November last year, receiving 254 million KRW in return. A was referred to the prosecution on charges of violating the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act (question sales).
It is known that A participated as a reviewer for a specific subject in the June 2023 CSAT mock exam organized by KICE around May 2022 and used the exam information obtained there. It was also confirmed that A produced a total of 11 questions and sold them to two private education companies before the mock exam was conducted (question leakage), resulting in additional charges of obstruction of official duties by deception and violation of the Act on Government-Funded Institutions.
Teacher A also worked as a question writer for EBS textbooks and is currently maintaining their status as a teacher.
Among the 14 people referred to prosecution for question sales, including A, 11 received money in exchange for producing and providing private CSAT-related questions to private education companies. The average selling price per question was around 100,000 KRW, with some priced as high as 200,000 to 300,000 KRW.
Most of these teachers stated that they committed the crimes for economic reasons. While acknowledging the sale of questions, they argued that it only constitutes grounds for disciplinary action such as violation of concurrent employment rules and is not subject to criminal punishment.
According to the police, Teacher A denied the charges related to question leakage, claiming that "there is no similarity between the mock exam questions and the ones sold." However, the charges were applied based on expert evaluations confirming the similarity.
Additionally, the NIH referred 19 people to the prosecution on charges of obstruction of official duties by deception for submitting false qualification screening documents and being selected as question writers, despite being ineligible to enter the question-writing headquarters organized by KICE during question sales.
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