On May 11th, the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission (ACRC) uncovered 58 Pusan National University (PNU) staffs’ improper execution of the budget for student guidance activities. ACRC investigated the actual state of the budget for student guidance activities targeting 12 national and public universities throughout the nation from March to April. Upon investigation, a total of 9.4 billion won of budget for student guidance activities was executed improperly from 10 out of 12 sample universities. In 2020, the budget for the student guidance activity of PNU was a total of 4.6 billion won for 714 staff and divided into 6.6 million won per person. According to the investigation, only about 1% of the total 6.9 billion won was embezzled. However, the proportion of the budget which was improperly used is expected to increase after the forthcoming inspection of the Ministry of Education. After the inspection, there will also be the redemption of the improperly paid budget. 

Until 2015, school support fees* were included in students' tuition. However, it was abolished due to the legislation and enforcement of the “Act on the Account Establishment and Finance Management of National Universities” and became a part of the budget for student guidance activities. According to this act, the staff of the national universities, including professors and administrative staff, do individual activities such as education, research, student counseling, or safety guidance and get paid through evaluation. To get student guidance activity fee, those activities must not be on-duty hours, and they must be done on time excluding working hours, such as lunch time, after work, or holidays like weekends. In addition, 40% of this activity expense is paid in advance by submitting the plan. The remaining 60% is paid after evaluating the result of activities. 

　In PNU, the budget for student guidance activities is paid to staff who participated in the safety guidance program of the mentoring program. However, 50 staff members left work at 7 P.M., but they pretended to return to work and did the safety guidance. Furthermore, they submitted false records and got a safety guidance fee. Their false record and the fact that they were paid a total of 57 million won were revealed by the car entrance and exit records. Also, another eight staffs were paid 10 million won for false registration of the laboratory safety guidance after their duty hours. The mentoring program, which set 4.3 billion won of budget, also was singled out. In the case of this program, only two false records by staff were revealed. However, the ACRC pointed out that the remaining 457 faculty members had poor counseling. In this way, national university staff still misused the budget for student guidance activity as ”the expense for salary assistance”** and were being paid in practice. 

　On May 14th, there was a one-person demonstration to condemn this incident. A PNU student, a member of the PNU Committee of Jinbo-Party, held the protest in front of the Main Gate and Main Administration Building with the slogan “We denounce PNU headquarters who embezzled 70 million won of our tuition.” Kim Myeong-Shin (Chairman, PNU Committee of Jinbo-Party) said, “PNU students are not guaranteed their right for learning and limited to use school facilities due to COVID-19. In these circumstances, we are furious that some staff in charge of school operations embezzled the students’ tuition. PNU must inform us about this incident accurately and arrange the countermeasure to prevent a recurrence. Moreover, PNU should apologize for inadequate management.” Cha Min-Gyeong (18, Dept. of Food Science and Nutrition) said, “When I was a freshman, I participated in the “Freshmen Mentoring Program” in which the mentor was PNU staff. I had a meal with my mentor once as a part of mentoring, and afterward, there were no other activities except that the mentor sent me the school information through the group chat room. As the mentors are paid the activity expense, I hope that the transparent program is established.” An anonymous PNU staff from the Office of Educational Affairs said, “PNU accepted heavy responsibility about the investigation of ACRC. Furthermore, we carried out the investigation autonomously. We acknowledged some defective parts institutionally. Nevertheless, the student guidance activity has a considerably worthful purpose. Especially, it can function affirmatively as the exchange strategy which builds rapport between the students and staff. We will try to improve this system in an advanced direction. Moreover, we will do our best for the upcoming inspection of the Ministry of Education.”

　An anonymous administrator from ACRC said, “In 2015, the act was enacted as the policy that will be utilized for students for good purposes. However, it is a severe problem that the staff paid themselves the budget from students’ tuition for their business expenses. I think there must be an improvement of the system so that the same situation does not occur again.”