My homework is your work: Students seeking shortcut

* From waking up a dozing student to tidying up graves, online advertisements with unusual but real job descriptions offer a peek into the Korean society. The Korea Herald looks at some of these unusual ads. The following is the third installment. –- Ed.


A job ad that still exists on the hyperlocal community app Karrot Market is from a person searching for someone to do his or her homework assignment about “algorithm in computer engineering.” “I think I’ll be asking weekly, like a part-time job. It’ll be good for someone who needs pocket money.”

Putting aside the moral aspect and whether 30,000 won offered is a just price for the job, having someone else do one’s work could potentially be devastating if that person’s parents ever enter politics in Korea.

Recently in Korean politics, suspicious circumstances surrounding the academic accomplishments of the children of political figures have made headlines.

Among the allegations that took down the political career of former Justice Minister Cho Kuk was the accusation that he and his wife took his son’s online open book test instead of him in November and December of 2016. The bitter irony is that Cho himself posted a Twitter comment blasting the Ewha Womans University professors of Chung Yoo-ra -- the daughter of former President Park Geun-hye’s confidante jailed for her involvement of a 2016 corruption scandal -- for supposedly completing assignments for Chung.

The new President Yoon Suk-yeol, sworn in Tuesday, doesn’t have a child to worry about. But his picks for the new Cabinet do.

Health Minister nominee Chung Ho-young faces suspicion that his son plagiarized content of other people’s work when writing his research papers for college. Justice Minister nominee Han Dong-hoon’s teenage daughter is currently under the microscope as critics look suspiciously at the five research papers and four e-books published by her in the space of about two months.

As for the above-mentioned ad, the Karrot Market app shows that one person has made an online inquiry.


By Yoon Min-sik (minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com)