Cheating in Korean Universities

Cheating in South Korean Universities

Cheating is rampant in Korean universities because there just isn't the stigma surrounding it like there is any university in a western country, nor are there any real consequences when you get caught. Certainly, you'll never get expelled.

Students will wholesale plagiarize an essay, or come to a test with answers written all the way up their arm and once they get caught, they'll expect the teacher to give them a second chance. It's so ridiculous and it's part of the reason why Korean university degrees aren't worth the paper that they're written on. Any serious Korean academic, or even those who actually want to get a job once they're done their PhD would never consider doing it in Korea and instead head to the USA or England.

(Join the Facebook group: Foreign Teachers in Korean Universities)

Anyway, that's a whole rant for another day. Here's what happened today. I was grading essays and I found a perfect one. Like a flawless 5 paragraph academic essay. The thing is, it was from the worst student in the class- the one who actually refuses to join with a partner to do a brief comparing of ideas, or the one who came to me on the first day of my conversation class last semester and told me that she's bad at English and doesn't want to actually have to talk to anybody in the class.

Off to Google and after about 10 seconds of searching (using the "exact" phrase feature of Google advanced search), I found it.

How do I deal with it?  I'd love to give her an F in the class, and for her to get expelled from the university. Instead, I gave her a 0/10 and I'll say no when she inevitably begs for another chance. Sigh. To do any more would be met with baffled looks from the admins and higher ups at my uni when they wondered why I'd possibly be making a big deal out of this and they'd think that I was actually being too harsh and tell me to let her do it again.

Want my job when I roll on outta here?  How to Get a University Job in South Korea: The English Teaching Job of Your Dreams.