Teachers pushed certain text for a share of booksellers' profit
In 2002, eight English teachers at a high school in Gwanak-gu, Seoul, received an offer from a book supplier: "If your school adopts textbooks supplied by us, we will give you 20 percent of the sales." The teachers agreed to the deal after a vote, and started raking in profits after the school agreed to order the textbooks. After a debate over compensation, the eight teachers ended up receiving 800,000 won (US$825) each. They were finally caught by the police, and a larger 'textbook ring' was exposed, with the National Police Agency indicting without detention 30 teachers in total from both public and private schools for receiving rebates in exchange for adopting textbooks or auxiliary material from local agencies of publishing houses. Twelve teachers of public high schools were found to have received 26 separate rebates from school-related supply companies, totaling about 16 million won, while 10 private school teachers received a total of about 5.6 million won.The police plan to expand their investigation to other schools and private institutions. Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]
