[EDITORIALS]An ‘F’ in ethics

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.