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Nearly 50 English language teachers from Canada have been arrested on suspicion of working illegally or having fraudulent qualifications. Officials put the number of English teachers working legally in South Korea at 7,800. The number of those working without the necessary documentation is believed to be around 20,000. An increase in the number or private schools is blamed for the rise in illegal workers.

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.

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.

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..

South Korea’s prestigious Ewha Womans University in Seoul – under the spotlight of investigations into a corruption scandal that led to the impeachment of the country’s former president faces renewed scrutiny. State prosecutors are seeking a seven-year jail term for the former president’s close friend for facilitating her daughter’s admission to the university and for having her high school academic grades altered. The daughter was last week extradited from Denmark to South Korea to face questioning related to her preferential admission as well as bribery allegations involving technology giant Samsung.

Some 82 cases of professors listing their secondary school offspring as co-authors in academic papers have been unearthed by an investigation by South Korea’s ministry of education. According to a Korea Herald Editorial, “It is obvious why the professors included the names of their children in the papers. The merit of being co-authors of research papers gives them a good advantage in seeking to enter universities through special admissions programmes”. The discovery could lead to disciplinary action in some cases, under Korea’s strict research misconduct laws which cover author attribution of research papers.

In spite of ongoing accusations of academic fraud and financial crimes against his family, a former law professor was nominated as the new justice minister. His wife, also a professor, was accused of allegedly falsifying material that would have helped their daughter enter university and obtain scholarships. In a protest against the government, opposition leaders shave their heads.

Over 90 medical students from Inha University in Incheon, west of Seoul, were found to have cheated during remote exams. They gathered at a specific location in a group of two to nine to take tests together or to compare their answers via telephone or social media platforms. To prevent its recurrence, the university demands students to submit an oath of academic honesty, use an online proctor system, and videotape themselves taking the tests. Those who are suspected of cheating could be required to take a verbal test.