297 Active Teachers Selling Killer Questions... Nearly 500 Million Won Received

Ministry of Education, Results of Voluntary Reporting Period Operation

A total of 297 active teachers voluntarily reported engaging in profit-making activities such as creating test questions to sell to private education companies or producing academy textbooks. Among them, there was a case of receiving 489 million KRW over five years. Additionally, 45 teachers received more than 50 million KRW from private education companies.

According to the education sector on the 22nd, the Ministry of Education announced that from the 1st to the 14th of this month, it operated a two-week voluntary reporting period for profit-making activities by active teachers linked to private education companies over the past five years, resulting in a total of 297 voluntary reports. The total number of cases was 768, categorized as 537 cases of mock exam question creation, 92 cases of textbook production, 92 cases of lectures and consulting, and 47 other cases.

Among the voluntarily reported teachers, 188 were found not to have obtained permission for concurrent employment, accounting for 341 cases. Of these, 45 teachers received more than 50 million KRW from private education companies. Most were high school teachers in the Seoul metropolitan area, who contracted with large entrance exam academies or famous instructors and frequently provided mock exam questions.

Mr. A, a private high school math teacher in Gyeonggi-do, reported to the Ministry of Education that he received a total of 485.26 million KRW over five years as compensation for creating mock exam questions for seven large academies and instructors. This is the highest amount received among the voluntarily reported teachers.

The Ministry of Education plans to verify the facts such as the period of activity and amounts involved for the voluntary reports received. Subsequently, they plan to take strict measures by comprehensively considering the degree of misconduct by type, whether concurrent employment permission was obtained, and the appropriateness of such permission.

Teachers who did not obtain permission for concurrent employment may face disciplinary action for violating the National Public Service Act. Even if permission was granted, if the Ministry of Education determines that creating and selling questions to private education companies could interfere with the normal performance of teachers' duties, disciplinary action may also be taken. For teachers who received excessively large sums from private education companies, the Ministry of Education may request an investigation by law enforcement agencies under the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act.

If it is confirmed that teachers who engaged in profit-making activities have experience in creating questions for the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) or mock evaluations, they may also face charges of obstruction of business for interfering with the question creation work of the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education believes there may be more teachers who have not voluntarily reported and plans to conduct investigations and audits with the Board of Audit and Inspection. Based on this, they plan to establish guidelines for teacher concurrent employment permissions in the second half of the year.

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