Jung Da-hyun is a reporter at The Korea Times, covering social issues in Korea, including foreign residents, education, environment and politics. Driven by a deep interest in people’s stories, she focuses on investigative and feature reporting through direct interviews and field coverage. She received the Amnesty International Korea Media Award for her “Deepfake Crisis at Schools” series. Reach her at dahyun08@koreatimes.co.kr. Always open to hearing your stories.
Upcoming court ruling to be decisive for Yoon's med school quota hike plan
A person pushes a patient in a wheelchair at a major hospital in Seoul, Sunday. Yonhap
By Jung Da-hyun
Court says next year's recruitment numbers not finalized yet
The Seoul High Court is set to decide on the validity of the Yoon Suk Yeol administration’s plan to increase the medical schools admissions quota, by the middle of this month. If the court rules against the government, the policy will encounter a serious setback at a time when relevant administrative procedures have almost been finalized.
The legal action was initiated by 18 individuals, including medical school professors, trainee doctors, medical students and examinees preparing for medical school, against the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Ministry of Education. They filed an injunction to prevent the medical school quota hike plan from proceeding.
Following the injunction application, the court, on April 30, instructed the government to submit — by May 10 — grounds for the proposed increase of the medical school quota by 2,000 starting next year.
The specific number for the medical school admissions quota will be determined after the ruling by the court, which urged the education ministry to postpone finalizing it.
The quota for the country's 40 medical schools has remained unchanged at 3,058 since 2006.
The government asserted that its policy aims to address a projected shortage of doctors, estimating a deficit of 10,000 physicians by 2035. The government emphasized the necessity of increasing the number of medical students by 2,000 every year, highlighting that it takes over six years to produce new doctors — according to their estimates.
A report by the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs, the Korea Development Institute (KDI) and Professor Hong Yoon-chul at Seoul National University Medical School, was submitted to the court to support this assertion by the government.
However, the report does not explicitly justify the addition of 2,000 medical school slots. So, the court ruled that additional grounds are necessary, mentioning that the government's submitted reasoning is insufficient.
The court also ordered the disclosure of on-site survey data and minutes from the medical school quota allocation committee.
A failure to submit this data could result in a loss for the government.
If the court rejects the provisional injunction application and agrees with the government's rationale, it may strengthen the momentum for the policy of increasing medical school admissions numbers.
Conversely, if the court accepts the provisional injunction application, judging that the government’s grounds are insufficient, pressure from medical groups to halt the increase in the medical school quota is likely to intensify.
Meanwhile, the education ministry and the Korean Council for University Education unveiled the university admissions implementation plan last Thursday. The additional slots for medical schools will range from a minimum of 1,489 to a maximum of 1,509, according to their announcement.
The unveiled new slots decreased from the government's initial decision to raise them by 2,000, as it allowed universities to adjust their quotas on their own within a range of 50 to 100 percent of the increased quota allocated to them, in a bid to appease intensifying protests from doctors.
Amid the legal battle, the government submitted a statement to the court clarifying that the recruitment numbers for the 2025 school year have not yet been finalized. The court also emphasized that the extent of the quota's expansion remains undecided.