An
F in ethics
Joong Ang Daily (South Korea)
February 12, 2006
The masterminds behind last year's online college application jam have
turned out to be some fellow students.
According to police investigations, those involved in the incident
logged on to the Web sites providing the online service and eventually
crashed their servers by repetitively signing on in an attempt to
hamper the registration of other students and lower the acceptance
rate.
Apparently, more than 1,000 people were involved in the act.
Before discussing the legality of the incident, we lament that the
ethical awareness of our youth has reached such low levels. The current
social climate, which values grades more than humanity, has led to
today's egoistic younger generation. If this trend continues to spread,
our future is bleak.
All parts of our society, including schools and homes, must reflect on
past acts and work to prevent similar events from happening in the
future. As it was also evident in the recent incident with postings on
the Web, ethical education with more up-to-date contents must also be
introduced.
The related government offices have again showed how pitiful their
administrative abilities are. Cellular phones were used to cheat in the
2004 College Scholastic Ability Test and investigation records point
out that the companies running the Web sites last year failed to abide
by regulations requiring them to report to the Ministry of Information
and Communication.
The Education Ministry is especially at fault because it is the
overseer of the college application process. Online registration has
become a mainstay these days, from national examinations in many fields
to applying for jobs.
Through this incident, we have learned that the convenience of online
business can quickly turn into a social loss if we fail to control the
procedures.
The government must use the recent events as an opportunity to
establish overall supervisory measures.