In the tremendously competitive South Korean school system, Chonji is a well-established practice of parents offering payoffs to teachers in order to give their children an advantage over other students.

Depending on the amount of money, bribery is considered a crime in South Korea, but the law penalizes only the receiver and not the giver.

South Korean authorities are worried about the extension of this practice and they declared publicly that 2009 will be "the year of the war against such bribes". Kim Jong-Yoon, who leads a bribery investigative team for the National Anti-Corruption and Civil Right Commission, declared that: "This culture must be fixed and improved".

On the other hand, the Korean Federation of Teachers states that "We do not defend or agree with Chonji", but at the same time, it notices that "500,000 educators could be condemned as a group of criminals".

For full story, see

www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-korea-teacher13-2009may13,0,6388192.story