Back to school: The Korea Herald

SEOUL – The government will reduce the number of new students entering medical schools next year back to 3,058, which is the same as the admission quota for the 2024 academic year.

Last year, as part of its medical reform agenda, the government increased the medical school admission quota for the 2025 school year by about 1,500 despite strong opposition from the medical community. The 3,058-student admission quota had been frozen for 19 years, since 2006.

Education Minister Lee Ju-ho said that the rollback of the plan to increase admissions would be implemented if all medical students return to classrooms by the end of this month. The government effectively surrendered in its conflict with medical students and trainees, though conditionally, as most of them have not returned to classrooms and hospitals for more than a year in protest against the push to increase the quota.

The policy rollback is to some extent inevitable considering the collapsing medical education system. Most students who entered medical schools last year have not yet returned to school from their leave of absence. New students admitted this spring are refusing to take classes. If this situation is not resolved, they will have to take freshman classes next year together with new students entering medical schools in the 2026 school year. Medical education will become physically impossible. In a few years, the supply of medical trainees, military doctors and public health doctors will fall seriously short.

And yet there is strong criticism that the government surrendered to medical students too soon in their conflict over the issue of increasing the admission quota. The government effectively scrapped its plan without medical students even promising to return to classrooms.

Minister Lee said that if students fail to come back to classes by the end of this month, the government will set the quota for the 2026 academic year at 5,058 as planned. Yet it is unclear whether they will return to school or not. A survey found that about 96 percent of students who entered medical schools from 2019 to 2024 expressed an intention to take this spring semester off.

In February last year, the government suddenly announced a plan to expand medical school admissions by 2,000 each year for five years from 2025. Dialogue with the parties involved was insufficient. The medical community immediately expressed opposition. In protest, medical trainees resigned en masse and medical students took a collective leave of absence.

As many medical trainees quit, adding stress on doctors, some of whom resigned as well, hospitals could not provide proper medical services. As a result, emergency and intensive care patients among others suffered great damage, with many losing their lives. The inconvenience that people have experienced in the chaos is beyond words.

The government could not have left this dire situation and the crumbling medical education as they were.

By effectively freezing the admissions quota for next year, the government paved the way to end its conflict with medical students. The students no longer have any justification to boycott classes. Students can advocate for their occupational rights and interests only after they earn their medical qualifications. It is hard to understand that even new students are boycotting classes in protest against an increase in the admission quota.

Even though the government effectively rolled back its policy to expand the quota for admissions, medical reform should not be suspended. Differences should be resolved over issues such as raising medical fees for essential health services that medical trainees tend to avoid specializing in because of low profitability as well as giving medical trainees better treatment and establishing a legal safety net to protect doctors from excessive medical lawsuits.

Legislators are currently handling a bill to establish a new panel to estimate how many medical doctors and students the country needs. Under the bill, medical stakeholders are supposed to recommend a majority of the panel’s members.

Now the ball is in the court of the medical community. The public expects a positive response.