The Ministry of Education has launched an inspection of all high schools in Korea to see how they manage students’ records.

The inspection was prompted by a police announcement Wednesday of a recent investigation into a girls’ high school in Gwangju.

Police said they referred the principal and two teachers of the school to prosecutors for fabricating the records of 25 students in the National Education Information System, an online system that records the grades and extracurricular activities of elementary, middle and high school students.

Under the relevant law, access to NEIS for correction of already entered students’ records is given only to homeroom teachers and subject teachers.
Homeroom teachers can log on to NEIS to make changes to the assessments that each subject teacher has made for their students. Subject teachers can also access NEIS to correct the assessments they have given to students on the courses they teach.

Yet the principal of the Gwangju school allegedly allowed the two teachers, who did not have the right to correct NEIS data, to illegally access the system 229 times in 2014 and 2015 to change the records of 25 students.

One of the two teachers, who teaches mathematics, was found to have altered the English test score of a student, receiving 2 million won ($1,800) from the student’s parents.

The principal instructed the two teachers to commit the illegal acts to help the top-tier students secure their places at prestigious universities, thus enhancing the school’s reputation.

The school’s alleged manipulation of students’ records fueled suspicions among parents and students that many other high schools in the nation might also be involved in the malpractice.

Their suspicions were not unfounded as the Gwangju case was not the first of its kind. In June, a teacher at a high school in Daegu accessed NEIS, after stealing his colleague’s authentication certificate, to alter comments on the extracurricular activities of his students.

The Education Ministry has decided to inspect all of the nation’s 2,300 high schools as complaints are growing among students and parents about the fairness of school records.

The ministry said it would draw up a list of the teachers who have accessed NEIS and see whether they have made unwarranted changes to students’ records. 

The ministry also said it would step up inspection of schools’ management of students’ records. Thus far, educational offices of each province and metropolitan city have examined the appropriateness of the changes made to NEIS data. But their scrutiny has been largely perfunctory.

The ministry needs to use its inspection of high schools as a basis for comprehensive reform of NEIS, as the system has serious weaknesses.

In the first place, it needs to restrict access to the NEIS more strictly to prevent unauthorized teachers from logging on to it to fabricate students’ records.

When a teacher accesses NEIS, it should be automatically recorded in the system. When teachers alter students’ records, they should be required to provide reasons for doing so.

The ministry also needs to put in place measures that would force educational offices of provinces and metropolitan cities to step up their oversight of schools’ management of students’ records.

The online transcript system constitutes one important pillar of the nation’s public education system. The government needs to fix its problems before people’s distrust of it jeopardizes the whole education system.