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Seoul's education authority is conducting an intensive crackdown on corrupt practices in the hiring of teachers at private elementary, middle and high schools. Officials at the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education (SMOE) said Monday that they are collecting tips amid persistent rumors of bribery during the hiring process. In this process, it is said that close ties with school foundation officials, or even bribes, often become the decisive factor in landing a job.

In an unprecedented crackdown on academic misconduct, as many as 179 university professors from some 110 universities in South Korea were indicted on Monday after an extensive criminal investigation into a huge copyright scam. The professors have been charged with republishing existing textbooks written by others under their own names by modifying the covers with the alleged connivance of the publishing companies.

Opposition lawmakers stepped up their offensive against the new Education Minister and further accused him of misconduct during his teaching years. The former professor of Korea National University of Education has already been accused of plagiarizing a thesis that helped him get promot..

The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education has detected cases of fraud in the admission process of two international schools. More than a dozen teachers and faculty members from the Younghoon and Daewon International Middle School were found to have tampered with applications to admit unqualified students.

The recent cancellation of U.S. college entrance exams in South Korea — the first time SAT tests have been called off nationwide anywhere in the world for suspected cheating —is throwing the spotlight back on the country's hyper-competitive academic environment.

A number of universities have been falsifying graduate employment data to raise funds and attract students, according to a government investigation. The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology announced that 28 universities across the country falsely reported the employment rate for their graduates.

Students and professors at South Korea's Kookmin University, the center of a plagiarism scandal involving two recently elected legislators, have joined opposition politicians in demanding that the lawmakers give up their seats after being found to have copied material for their doctoral dissertations.