The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education announced on Wednesday that it has identified 163 students who were illegally admitted to international schools.

The education office said it had ordered eight international schools to suspend the students, who were admitted without meeting the principal admission requirements, following its special inspection into all of the city’s 19 international schools.

Under the current law, only children with a parent with foreign citizenship or who have lived overseas for more than three years are allowed to attend the international schools. But the education office said the majority of the students listed are Korean nationals with less than three years of overseas residence.

“The students’ admissions should all be canceled immediately, but considering their education, we decided to give them some time to leave the school voluntarily,” an official from the Seoul education office said, noting that all the students named for admission irregularities must leave their schools by June this year.

By Oh Kyu-wook (596story@heraldcorp.com)