Education policy and reform plans of the government administration are focusing on two key words: autonomy and competition. Now, these two words are rare commodities in the education sector, which is currently engulfed in a series of corruption scandals, well illustrated by the former top educator of Seoul.

As the academic results improve due to a national curriculum that contains coherence and a continuation, the government is concerned with the fact that the increase of private tutoring expenses could open an edge between poor and rich students. Therefore, governmental online tutoring programs are being released in order to compete with the enterprises specialists in teaching services.

The Ministry of education will probe private schools over irregularities in the fight against corruption. The education minister and the Board of audit and inspection will soon jointly select private schools suspected of mismanaging their schools. They will only investigate those which are suspected of mismanagement and corruption, rather than doing random investigation.

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.