[Newsmaker] Seoul education office demands expulsion of twins for cheating

Seoul’s education office recommended Tuesday the expulsion of twins suspected of having cheating on exams and to take strong disciplinary actions against school officials, after police concluded a teacher had leaked test answers to his twin daughters attending the school where he teaches.

Cho Hee-yeon, the superintendent of Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, also said the office will reinforce policies to prevent teachers and their children from working at and attending the same school.

On Monday, police concluded that a teacher had leaked exam questions and answers to his twin daughters, second-year students at Sookmyung Girl’s High School in Gangnam, Seoul.

Police sent the case to the public prosecutor’s office, indicting the father on charges of obstruction of business. The daughters were charged as accomplices.

While police did not charge the school’s principal or vice principal, Cho urged the school to take punitive measures against them.

In his statement, Cho also recommended the school expel the twins and recalculate the grades of the school’s students for the semesters when the leaks occurred.

According to the education office, 116 teachers at 79 middle and high schools in Seoul had children attending the same schools where they worked as of the end of August.

For teachers in public schools, the education office will request their transfer to other public schools and send strong recommendations for private schools to do the same within their school foundations.

From the investigations, police concluded that there had been leakage of test questions and answers on five occasions from June 2017 to July this year.

The twins and their father continue to deny the allegations. The twins claim they worked to raise their grades. 

On the exam papers, the twins were found to have scribbled rows of numbers which were the answers to the multiple-choice questions, police said. However, the twins told police that they had jotted down the answers, when they were marking the test papers after the exam.

Sookmyung Girls’ High School on Monday issued a statement saying the school was in the process of expelling the twins and their father.

The twins submitted withdrawal forms early this month, but the school has been delaying the decisions as it has faced criticism that the top grades of the twins would remain if they voluntarily left the school.

Suspicions about cheating were first raised when several parents of students attending the school questioned the sharp rise in the grades of the twins -- from average scores to become the top students at the school.

By Jo He-rim (herim@heraldcorp.com)