Audit Finds Widespread 'Copy-and-Paste' in Seoul High School Records... 92% of School Violence Counseling Records Not Retained

Continuous Hiring Despite Teacher Surplus
Personnel Expenses Exceed Budget by 681.3 Billion Won

The Board of Audit and Inspection has revealed through an audit that the so-called "copy-and-paste" practice, where teachers record identical detailed abilities, special remarks, and comprehensive comments for multiple students in the school records used for college admissions, has been widespread in Seoul-area high schools. It was also found that most counseling records regarding school violence were not retained, resulting in cases where the claims of student victims were not recognized, and there were instances where records of disciplinary measures against perpetrators were deleted in violation of regulations.

Yonhap News Agency

On July 20, the Board of Audit and Inspection announced that it conducted a regular audit of the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education's overall management of school affairs, student records, and personnel operations, during which it discovered a total of 12 illegal or improper cases and issued warnings and notifications accordingly.

According to the Board of Audit and Inspection's analysis of school records from 239 high schools in Seoul between 2021 and 2024, 803 teachers each entered identical entries for special remarks for at least 51 students. There were 1,106 instances in which a single teacher entered the same statement for 51 or more students taking the same subject.

Among these, the most common were 637 cases where the same statement was repeatedly used within the same academic year. There were 39 cases where statements from the previous year were reused in the following year, and three cases were found where identical statements were made for first- and third-year students, despite differences in course content.

In detail, 141 teachers recorded identical special remarks for more than 101 students each, and 19 teachers repeated such duplications for more than two consecutive years. Eighteen homeroom teachers entered identical comprehensive comments for more than 70% of their homeroom students. Three teachers wrote the same comprehensive comments for the entire class in a single day.

In one case, a teacher divided students’ attendance numbers into five groups and wrote the same comprehensive comment for all students in each group. Other teachers evaluated all students with identical statements such as, "Has broad thinking and strong concentration," "Excels in self-directed learning ability," or "Has harmonious relationships with peers," among other lengthy, uniform comments.

These special remarks and comprehensive comments in school records serve as key materials for assessing students’ academic capabilities and school life during the college admissions process. The Board of Audit and Inspection noted that such duplicated entries, which fail to reflect individual student characteristics, could undermine fairness and differentiation in the admissions evaluation process.

Inspections by the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education were also only conducted in a superficial manner. According to the Board of Audit and Inspection, in 2023 there were 105 schools, and in 2024 there were 69 schools, each with more than 51 students receiving the same special remarks; however, only 17 schools in 2023 and 9 schools in 2024 were actually identified and rated as "inadequate" by education office inspectors. Notably, the 9 schools discovered in 2024 did not correct their student records even after receiving requests from inspectors, up until the date of the audit.

The Board of Audit and Inspection has notified the Seoul Metropolitan Superintendent of Education to investigate the teachers involved in duplicate entries and take appropriate measures depending on the severity of each case, and to prepare specific standards for duplicate entries that reflect subject characteristics and on-site educational conditions.

Most School Violence Counseling Records Not Retained

Most counseling records, which could serve as key evidence in school violence incidents, were also not retained. The Board of Audit and Inspection sampled 155 cases reviewed by the School Violence Countermeasure Deliberation Committees under the Gangnam Seocho and Gangseo Yangcheon Education Support Offices from March 2023 to November 2025 and found that in 143 cases (92.2%), schools did not keep counseling records and thus such records were not submitted to the committees.

Among these, in two cases, victims had repeatedly consulted with teachers about the school violence before reporting the cases, but due to the absence of records, the victims’ claims were only partially recognized as school violence owing to insufficient objective evidence.

In 11 Education Support Offices of Seoul under the Metropolitan Office of Education, the school violence committees did not retain records of individual evaluations, reasoning, or the final consensus process among committee members, but only entered the final outcomes in the meeting minutes. In a sample investigation of measures taken against 367 perpetrators, there were cases where school violence lasted more than six months but was assessed as lacking in continuity or severity, and cases where perpetrators who showed no remorse or willingness to reconcile were still judged to have high levels of remorse.

There were also cases where schools inappropriately deleted records of school violence measures taken against perpetrators. Some schools deleted the records of students who had received disciplinary actions for multiple incidents, or for students who had withdrawn, before the statutory retention period of two years had passed. In one case, a school made the decision to delete records through a committee with only three members, failing to meet the minimum quorum of four.

Poor Management in Teacher Personnel Operations

Poor management was found in teacher personnel operations as well. Despite the government's plan to reduce the number of teaching staff, the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education increased the projected number of vacancies without grounds and excessively hired new teachers.

In 2021, when establishing its elementary school teacher recruitment plan, the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education increased the projected vacancies by 358, from 692 to 1,050, and overhired 303 new teachers. As a result, there were 710 surplus teachers, yet the office continued hiring over 100 new teachers annually through 2025.

By 2024, although there was already a surplus of 298 regular elementary school teachers, the office authorized the appointment of 3,142 teachers outside the official allocation, and schools went on to hire an additional 496 temporary teachers beyond this quota. In middle schools, it was found that 1,616 temporary teachers had been hired in excess of the regular allocation.

As a result, the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education’s personnel expenditure for teachers in 2024 amounted to approximately 4.2408 trillion won, exceeding the 3.5595 trillion won allocated by the Ministry of Education by 681.3 billion won. The Board of Audit and Inspection pointed out that the increase in personnel expenses could reduce the operating budget needed for items such as instructional materials, thereby impairing the efficiency of financial management.

The Board of Audit and Inspection has called on the Superintendent of the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education and the Minister of Education to enforce strict management and supervision regarding teacher quotas and headcounts. The Board also plans to further investigate the fairness of decisions made by school violence committees and the reliability of the school violence response system through a scheduled "audit of the status of school violence response" in the second half of the year.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.