By Han Sang-hee
Sixty seven principals and other educators were dismissed for allegedly taking kickbacks or engaging in other corrupt deals last year.
It marks the largest yearly number of educators sacked by the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education in its history.
The office slapped sanctions against a total of 118 educators for corrupt practices between late 2009 and early 2010.
Of the cases, the most common was the “buying and selling of teaching jobs,” with as many as 32 educational staff members, including 15 principals, implicated in the money-for-position scandal.
Some twenty staff have been removed from their posts for involvement in the “field trip scandal,” in which 157 principals and vice principals around Seoul were given kickbacks to choose and work with one particular company for school events and field trips.
Kong Jeong-taek, former superintendent of the Seoul Metropolitan Education Office, was also stripped of his post due to bribe-taking.
The office said that most of the dismissed teachers had filed petitions for reviews with the education authorities, but all have been dismissed with the exception of a couple of cases.
Some of them are preparing suits against the Seoul education office which is in turn planning countersuits.