Seventy-two current teachers were referred to prosecutors in an investigation of the so-called 'private education cartel' for selling private mock exam questions to academy instructors and receiving money. Employees from the Korea Education & Assessment Institute also prevented an appeal review for the college entrance exam.
The Korean National Police Agency announced the final results of the investigation into the private education cartel case on the 16th. Earlier, the Ministry of Education requested an investigation by the police in July 2023 regarding allegations of collusion between private education companies and College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) question writers. The police began a full-scale investigation after adding their own intelligence.
The police referred a total of 97 people to prosecutors, including 72 current teachers, 11 academy instructors, 9 academy representatives, and 5 employees and professors from the assessment institute. Three private education companies were also referred to prosecutors.
According to the police investigation, current teachers who created mock CSAT questions and sold them to private education companies or instructors received up to 260 million won. The selling price for a single question ranged from 100,000 to 500,000 won, and they were traded in 'sets' of 20 to 30 questions. One instructor paid up to 550 million won to acquire the questions.
Nine current teachers with experience as question writers and reviewers organized a so-called 'question production team' and systematically sold questions to various private education companies and instructors. They also operated a 'question review team' composed of university students, selling a total of 2,946 questions for specific subjects to the private education industry and receiving a total of 620 million won.
The police referred five current teachers who had written questions sold to private education companies for high school midterm exams on charges of obstruction of duty. An admissions officer at a university coached eight third-year high school students on their college application essays and received 3.1 million won. There was also a case where a current teacher leaked the results of her high school students' college admission assessments.
The police also released the results of their investigation into the controversy surrounding the duplication of question 23 from the 2023 CSAT English exam. The question, which was part of the CSAT held in November 2022, was a three-point question that required reading a passage excerpted from 'Too Much Information' by Professor Cass Sunstein at Harvard Law School and identifying its theme.
However, immediately after the CSAT, there were claims that this passage was identical to a passage provided by a well-known instructor from a major admission company. It was also belatedly revealed that a similar passage was included in an EBS CSAT textbook's review edition but was ultimately excluded, further fueling the controversy.
The university professor who was a member of the question-writing committee was found to have saved the passage seen in the EBS textbook he reviewed in 2022 and used it verbatim in question 23. A similar question included in the mock exam by the instructor was created and sold to him by another current teacher.
The police analyzed the accounts, communications, and email records of the CSAT question committee members and private textbook personnel and found no circumstances that would raise suspicions of collusion between them.
However, the Korea Education & Assessment Institute concluded that it had been negligent in verifying 'duplication' with private textbooks during the CSAT question-setting process. The institute omitted the textbook of Instructor A, which had been included in the annual purchase list until then, without a valid reason while searching for the private textbooks needed for verification. It excluded the textbook published on September 27 while limiting the purchase targets to textbooks published by September 26, 2022.
Subsequently, after receiving numerous appeals pointing out the similarities between question 23 from the CSAT and the textbook from Instructor A, the assessment institute attempted to suppress the review process. Three employees responsible for the review misled the review committee members by stating, 'The mock exam from Instructor A was not a mock exam the assessment institute could purchase,' preventing it from being submitted for deliberation.
The police referred the professor who set question 23 of the CSAT for obstruction of duty, while the teacher who sold the questions and instructor Jo were referred on charges of violation of the Improper Solicitation Act. The three assessment institute employees who suppressed the appeal review were referred to the prosecutors for obstruction of duty.