[2026 Audit] KCUE Chairman Lee Kijeong Admits "Early Admissions System Outage Was Foreseeable"

Lee Kijeong, chairman of the Korean Council for University Education (KCUE), acknowledged that the failure of the application system for the 2027 academic year’s early university admissions had been foreseeable.

On October 12, during a National Assembly Education Committee audit, Democratic Party lawmaker Ahn Gyubaek asked Lee, “This incident was already foreseeable and cannot be considered an unexpected event, can it?” Lee replied, “That is correct.”

Ahn pointed out that the same application system had failed on the night of September 10, before the outage on September 11. “Even though the KCUE requested an analysis of the cause and called for stable system management, the contractor did not respond, and no substantive measures were taken,” Ahn said. “As a result, the foreseeable system outage happened again the next day.”

Lee also agreed with the criticism that the same problem had occurred the day before the outage, but the private contractor had failed to properly analyze its cause or take follow-up action. When Ahn said, “I believe the contractor responded complacently to the foreseeable risk,” Lee replied, “I agree.”

However, Lee said the KCUE had no authority to conduct a technical investigation into the cause of the private contractor’s system failure.

“We do not have the authority to investigate it technically,” Lee said. “We contacted them by phone and email several times to request the results, but received no response.”

When Ahn asked, “Are you saying the KCUE has moral responsibility but no legal authority or responsibility?” Lee replied, “That is correct,” adding, “The system needs to be improved.”

Regarding plans to overhaul the application system’s operating structure, Lee outlined three options: having a public institution take full responsibility for operating the system; having a public institution own the system while a private company operates it; or maintaining the current private-sector operating structure while strengthening public institutions’ legal responsibility.

Asked which option the KCUE favored, Lee said, “We are assessing which approach would best ensure system stability.”

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