Foreign students pushed into illegal work

Written by admin Tuesday, 03 August 2010 15:23

It has been found that some universities are having their international students do work which is illegal for them and then granting them degrees even though they were never sent to a single class. The Gunsan Police Department in Jeollabuk-do has arrested "A" and eight other senior professors at a university on charges of interfering with official work and hiring foreign laborers. According to police, the professors had the 123 Chinese students who came to the school in 2007 and 2008 work illegally in factories and restaurants and graduate after taking only the first semester's classes. Investigators found that the professors gave them degrees after filling out their attendance forms and exams just as if they had been attending classes while working illegally, and some of the professors introduced them to further illegal work. Police said of the graduation that, "the school indiscriminately admitted unqualified foreign students to solve its financial problems and prevent having to close its doors." Currently the Ministry of Science, Education, and Technology (교육과학기술부) recommends that foreign students wishing to study at a two-year school pass the third level of the Test of Korean Proficiency and students in a four-year program, the fourth level. However, some of the students the school admitted had never even taken the exam. The professors personally invited the students through the univerisity's relationship with the three locations in China of a combined technical school and school for sending students abroad. Currently half of the 123 students who received diplomas have returned to their home countries and of the rest, half are believed to be working illegally in Korea, of whom six have been caught by police and will be deported.

Read original article in Korean here.

This article republished in its entirety courtesy Korea Beat.