Hyun Woo-jin (38), known as a "star instructor," is said to be under suspicion of paying up to about 180 million won per person to incumbent teachers in exchange for providing questions. It also emerged that prominent English instructor Cho Jeong-sik (43) is suspected of having received EBS textbook questions from an authoring teacher in advance before publication.
According to the indictments on Hyun and Cho submitted by the People Power Party lawmaker Park Jun-tae's office from the Ministry of Justice on the 14th, Hyun, a megastudy math instructor, was found to have transferred a total of a little over 420 million won to three incumbent teachers from 2020 to 2023 in exchange for receiving math questions.
Prosecutors determined that Hyun committed the offense after deciding to secure questions from incumbent educators with question-writing capabilities—such as teaching experience and EBS textbook authoring experience—to gain an edge over competing private education companies.
According to the indictment, Hyun is suspected of paying a total of a little over 167 million won from March 2020 to May 2023 in exchange for receiving math test questions produced by Teacher A at a private high school. He also appears to be suspected of having transferred a little over 179 million won to another private high school teacher, B, in exchange for questions. In addition, from March 2020 to June 2023, he was found to have paid 75.3 million won to an account under a spouse's name to Teacher C, an incumbent teacher, under the pretext of math question production costs.
Cho, a megastudy English instructor, was found to be suspected of having paid a total of a little over 83 million won to incumbent teachers from January 2021 to October 2022 in exchange for receiving English questions.
Prosecutors also applied the charge of instigating breach of duty, viewing that Cho obtained financial gain by receiving unpublished EBS textbook files from teachers.
According to the indictment, in January 2021, Cho asked D, who had established a company to produce Cho's lecture materials, to obtain the College Scholastic Ability Test special lecture files in advance from E, an incumbent teacher, before they were distributed on the market, and was found to have received the unpublished files for "2022 College Scholastic Ability Test Special Lecture English Reading Practice."
E, an incumbent teacher who was part of the textbook's authoring team, had signed an authoring agreement and a confidentiality pledge stating "I will not hand over questions provided to EBS to a third party," but was found to have sent files such as "2022 College Scholastic Ability Test Special Lecture English Reading Practice answers" and "main text" to D via KakaoTalk.
The indictments also included indications that Highconsy, the parent company of the major entrance exam academy SDIJ, and Gangnam Daesung Research Institute, an affiliate of Gangnam Daesung Academy, engaged in question transaction with teachers from 2020 to 2023.
Prosecutors understood that SDIJ paid about 700 million won and Daesung Academy paid about 1.1 billion won, respectively, to teachers with whom they signed contracts on the condition of receiving questions for CSAT mock tests and in-school exams.