Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education: "No Attendance Privileges for Cho Kuk's Son... Internship Certificate Cannot Be Verified"

Teacher Makes Mistake When Recording Attendance in Student Record... No Impact on Attendance Status

[Asia Economy Reporter Jo In-kyung] Regarding the prosecution's investigation result that Cho Mo (24), son of former Minister of Justice Cho Kuk, submitted a falsely issued internship certificate to process attendance during high school, the education office's investigation found no attendance privileges at Hanyeong Foreign Language High School.

The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education recently announced on the 10th that following an on-site investigation of Hanyeong Foreign Language High School, there were no changes to Cho's school life records.

According to the education office, at that time, the school's off-campus experiential learning regulations recognized students' personal internship activities as valid reasons for attendance. Accordingly, attendance was acknowledged based on Cho's internship certificate. However, in this case, the attendance management system (NEIS) should have marked it as "excused absence," but the homeroom teacher, not fully understanding the guidelines, marked it simply as "attendance."

The education office explained, "The marking error does not affect the total number of attendance days," and added, "Supporting documents such as the internship certificate have passed the retention period and are currently unavailable for verification."

Earlier, according to the indictment of former Minister Cho released on the 31st of last month, Cho Kuk is accused of having obtained a false certificate of planned internship activities from Seoul National University Public Interest Human Rights Law Center in July 2013 to have his son Cho recognized as attending school while in his third year of high school.

The certificate issued to Cho at that time stated, "This certifies that from July 15 to August 15, the intern will engage in activities such as investigating human rights related to school violence victims and writing papers." Cho Kuk's wife, Jung Kyung-shim, sent this certificate to Hanyeong Foreign Language High School, and although Cho did not attend school from July 15 to 19 for five days, he was recorded as present.

The prosecution stated in the indictment, "The couple, Cho Kuk and his wife, fearing that unexcused absences in the student record would negatively affect their son's future admission process while he needed to miss school for SAT preparation and academy classes for overseas university entrance, decided to create a false certificate."

Following criticism that the education office should investigate whether the school recognized attendance despite knowing the certificate was problematic and whether related documents were properly received, an on-site investigation was conducted on the 8th to review the school's attendance regulations, Cho's third-year attendance status, and supporting documents.

However, supporting documents such as the internship certificate have passed the five-year retention period and cannot be verified, and regarding the suspicion of submitting a false certificate, necessary measures will be taken according to judicial decisions.

The education office stated, "We will provide guidance for the marking error caused by unfamiliarity with the relevant guidelines, and if the internship certificate is proven false, administrative measures will be taken to correct the student record entries."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.