AngryEthiopian
Dec 6th, 2004, 02:14 PM
http://cnn.aimtoday.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?&idq=/ff/story/0002%2F20041203%2F0336435516.htm&sc=rittz
Mobile Phone Cheats Mar S.Korean College Exam
By Jack Kim and Moon Hae-won
SEOUL (Reuters) - Police questioned 350 South Korean students Friday and more were under suspicion in a widening probe into cheating that has uncovered a link between two national obsessions -- education and mobile phones.
Cheating is not unprecedented in the one-day university examination, a test that many South Koreans are convinced is the single most important event that decides a young person's future.
But the test on Nov. 17 this year was marred by what appears to have been a sophisticated and widespread scheme to provide students the answers by mobile phone. Hundreds of the 600,000 who took part may be involved.
Others are being questioned for paying college students to take the exam in their place using forged identification.
"It is mainly due to pressure to do well in a test that will decide their lives forever," said Jung Bong-mun, an Education Ministry official who works on college admission policy.
He said the pressure to perform well, and thus to cheat, had been there in previous years. Yet this was the first year cases of premeditated cheating using mobile phones were uncovered.
Under the scheme, "a player" -- a better-performing student taking the exam or a college student monitoring the test from outside by mobile telephone -- would transmit the answers to mostly multiple-choice questions to pre-arranged receivers.
A nationwide police investigation is in place and some cram school teachers are being questioned. The money said to be involved -- up to one million won ($960) per student according to some media reports -- means parents are also suspected.
The number of students who took advantage is growing by the day as those hoping to escape harsh punishment turn themselves in.
In tech-savvy South Korea, three-quarters of the country's 48 million people have at least one mobile phone.
Text messaging has caught on especially among young mobile phone users, and mobile operators offer unlimited text messaging for a flat fee to lure subscribers away from competition.
With the proliferation of young mobile subscribers of school age, rumors had persisted mobile phones would be used to share answers among students.
But if mobile phones are an obsession in the world's most wired country, education is another.
Some students have committed suicide because of the pressure and real-estate prices have gone up in areas where cram schools have been effective in helping students prepare for the exam to get into the prized top universities.
"It is more devastating than sad," said a parent of a student who took the exam this year. "I'm very worried about the future of our country because students don't seem to care about the process but only the results."
Others are critical of the way the government and the police appear to be holding themselves back from an all-out investigation, apparently from concern it could completely derail the admissions process this year.
"They are talking about the rights to privacy of the students," said Yoon Sung-nam, a taxi driver with two sons in college. "But what about the rights of all the students who took the test honestly?"
($1-1044.8 won)
12/03/04 03:36
Mobile Phone Cheats Mar S.Korean College Exam
By Jack Kim and Moon Hae-won
SEOUL (Reuters) - Police questioned 350 South Korean students Friday and more were under suspicion in a widening probe into cheating that has uncovered a link between two national obsessions -- education and mobile phones.
Cheating is not unprecedented in the one-day university examination, a test that many South Koreans are convinced is the single most important event that decides a young person's future.
But the test on Nov. 17 this year was marred by what appears to have been a sophisticated and widespread scheme to provide students the answers by mobile phone. Hundreds of the 600,000 who took part may be involved.
Others are being questioned for paying college students to take the exam in their place using forged identification.
"It is mainly due to pressure to do well in a test that will decide their lives forever," said Jung Bong-mun, an Education Ministry official who works on college admission policy.
He said the pressure to perform well, and thus to cheat, had been there in previous years. Yet this was the first year cases of premeditated cheating using mobile phones were uncovered.
Under the scheme, "a player" -- a better-performing student taking the exam or a college student monitoring the test from outside by mobile telephone -- would transmit the answers to mostly multiple-choice questions to pre-arranged receivers.
A nationwide police investigation is in place and some cram school teachers are being questioned. The money said to be involved -- up to one million won ($960) per student according to some media reports -- means parents are also suspected.
The number of students who took advantage is growing by the day as those hoping to escape harsh punishment turn themselves in.
In tech-savvy South Korea, three-quarters of the country's 48 million people have at least one mobile phone.
Text messaging has caught on especially among young mobile phone users, and mobile operators offer unlimited text messaging for a flat fee to lure subscribers away from competition.
With the proliferation of young mobile subscribers of school age, rumors had persisted mobile phones would be used to share answers among students.
But if mobile phones are an obsession in the world's most wired country, education is another.
Some students have committed suicide because of the pressure and real-estate prices have gone up in areas where cram schools have been effective in helping students prepare for the exam to get into the prized top universities.
"It is more devastating than sad," said a parent of a student who took the exam this year. "I'm very worried about the future of our country because students don't seem to care about the process but only the results."
Others are critical of the way the government and the police appear to be holding themselves back from an all-out investigation, apparently from concern it could completely derail the admissions process this year.
"They are talking about the rights to privacy of the students," said Yoon Sung-nam, a taxi driver with two sons in college. "But what about the rights of all the students who took the test honestly?"
($1-1044.8 won)
12/03/04 03:36