Pusan National University (PNU) professors and staff unfairly received about 90 million won for education, research, and student guidance for three years. The University Headquarters announced that it had prepared countermeasures necessary to prevent recurrence, under the guidelines of the Ministry of Education, and completed the payback of the amount of corrupt funds received.

On September 7th, the Ministry of Education announced the final results of the "Special Audit for National University Education, Research and Student Guidance Funds." The Ministry of Education conducted the audit for three months, from May to July of last year, and the audit period was from 2018 to 2020.

PNU was pointed out for five issues: (Inappropriate student guidance related to personal vehicle entry and exit, inappropriate submission of student guidance fund performances, inadequate recognition of student guidance performance who did not conduct counseling with their advisor, inappropriate performance management in the student guidance area, and no evaluation of research results for planned research projects.) The Ministry of Education issued warnings and cautions to 16 faculty and staff and issued two institutional warnings and one institutional caution to PNU. A total of 92,627,360 won of the improperly paid student guidance funds were collected from the parties and returned to the account of the relevant institution.

Based on the entry and exit records, the Ministry of Education discovered that the faculty and staff were not on campus during the student guidance time. A total of 58 faculty and staff were absent from the campus according to the entry/exit records, but they submitted the results of providing student guidance 561 times.

The faculty and staff who reported providing student guidance during times when student guidance was not possible were also caught. Eight faculty and staff received 4 million won for student guidance funds as they reported the guiding of the nine labor scholarship students while working. There was a case (5 faculty and staff) who received 2.65 million won for submitting their performance reports even though it was impossible to guide students due to overtime. In this regard, the Ministry of Education issued a warning to two faculty members and a caution to 11 and ordered the university to recover a total of 6.65 million won.

Some professors reported student guidance performances without providing their students with advisory professor consultations. Three professors submitted their student guidance results to four students 11 times without giving advisory professor consultations and received 417,360 won. The three professors were issued a warning, and the student guidance funds they received were recovered.

PNU was also pointed out as having problems regarding performance management in the student guidance area and poor evaluation of research results. In the 19,726 performance reports submitted by 1,378 faculty and staff, there was no evidence to confirm whether or not they participated in the activities, so PNU received an "institutional warning." In addition, PNU selected 16 planned research projects and supported them with a research expenses of 110 million won, but the results of the research project were not evaluated, so PNU received another "institutional caution."

The University Headquarters announced that it had recovered unfair payments after the first audit by the Ministry of Education in November of last year. They supplemented the guidelines on campus according to the "Education, Research and Student Guidance Funds Operation Improvement Plan" announced by the Ministry of Education in January. According to the improvement plan, PNU should make it mandatory for students to participate in the entire operation process, from planning to performance evaluation, and establish a three-stage inspection system. When faculty members turn out to unfairly to receive education, research, and student guidance funds, they must pay double the amount of the illegal receipt, and participation in the program must be restricted until the following year. In addition to introducing the "three strikeout system," which permanently restricts participation when caught three or more times, three items (Operational plan for project and number of participants, Expenses paid, and Proceedings of the Judging Committee) have been added to the disclosure lists. Lee Sang-Chang (Head of Teacher Evaluation Support Team, Academic Affairs) said, "After the individual project was completed, we have been conducting a survey for students, and have expanded the scope of disclosure of the tuition fee execution process."

Reporter Kim Min-Sung

Translated by Seo Hae-Seong