Medical school faces audit for defiance over students’ leave

South Korea’s education ministry has announced an “audit” of the country’s top medical school at Seoul National University (SNU) after the institution approved “leave of absence” requests from over 700 of its roughly 800 students in a direct challenge to the government’s stance against collective leave.

Medical students around the country submitted leave of absence requests earlier this year as they began to boycott classes in protest at the government’s increase in the number of medical school places.

Boycotting students were joined by striking doctors and medical professors, all of whom argue the rise in quotas will lead to class overcrowding and lower quality clinical training.

The strikes and boycotts have lasted for months and are still ongoing causing widespread disruption in the national medical sector, and medical education and training. As a result of the boycotts, the attendance rate among students in the fall semester was just 2.8%.

The government has firmly maintained its opposition to granting collective leave, hoping this would encourage students to return to classes.

However, in a decision made public on 30 September by SNU College of Medicine dean Kim Jung-eun, the university became the first institution in the country to approve the request for leave of absence submitted collectively by its students, thereby putting itself in direct confrontation with the government.

An ‘inappropriate act’

On 1 October the ministry called SNU’s decision a “highly inappropriate act” that undermined the university’s fundamental duty to educate and train future healthcare professionals and announced it would conduct an immediate on-site audit. It vowed to hold the university “accountable” should any significant issues be found.

Kim Min-ho, president of SNU’s medical students’ association, expressed doubt about any possibility of productive dialogue with the ministry under such circumstances.

“Mutual trust is essential for dialogue, but it’s hard to see how conversations can proceed when the university is being subjected to a thorough audit for approving the leave [requests] and the ministry is suggesting that students should simply be promoted without attending classes,” Kim said in a local newspaper interview this week.

He was also concerned about a decline in medical education quality, noting: “At Seoul National University, 10 students are participating in each anatomy lab session, meaning only three or four of them can properly observe the cadaver.”

Medical professor groups, including the National Association of Medical School Professors, released a statement on 6 October condemning the government’s decision to reject collective leave as “an anti-constitutional move that infringes upon students’ freedom and universities’ autonomy”.

They called on all university heads to immediately approve students’ leave requests.

Wide scope of government investigation

Documents obtained by Democratic Party lawmaker Jin Sun-mee, a member of the National Assembly’s Education Committee, revealed the ministry had requested detailed information on the circumstances surrounding the mass leave approval as part of its audit.

This included data on the number of leave requests, how the university had responded to students’ collective actions, and any efforts made to prevent such collective protests.

In its investigation, which involved a dozen inspectors and began on 2 October, the ministry looked into the university's efforts to protect students who continue to attend classes and its strategies for academic and clinical training during the disruption.

The ministry was also to look at SNU’s efforts to encourage students to return and whether complaints were filed by students or their parents. The audit was set to conclude by 10 October.

The government’s approach to SNU has been criticised as overly harsh. “It appears that the ministry is placing more emphasis on how much effort the school made to control collective action [by students] rather than the leave [process] itself,” Jin remarked.

Others noted that the ministry fully intended to respond strongly, fearing other medical schools might follow SNU’s lead.

SNU’s faculty council, representing all SNU professors, criticised the government for “mobilising the coercive measure of conducting an audit to make the school cancel the approval”, and also emphasised the importance of institutional autonomy.

The council suggested that faculty councils at other universities could take joint action to counter what it saw as a government attempt to “tame colleges through suppressive means and violate students’ rights to study”.

Applications for leave were first submitted by students in February, covering leave for the first semester of this year. In all, more than 90% of SNU’s approximately 800 medical students had filed leave requests by March as a form of protest.

However, the SNU medical school till now refrained from processing the applications, adhering to the government’s position against collective leave.

The ministry in July revised some regulations to create pathways to ease students’ return to classes, such as extending the first-semester grading deadline. However, medical students and faculty argued it would be practically impossible for students to complete first and second-semester coursework simultaneously, and so leave requests should be granted.

Professors’ associations also noted in a statement that even if students returned to classes now, there would not be enough time left in the academic calendar to provide proper education, potentially resulting in poorly trained doctors entering the workforce.

Government’s emergency plan

With no sign of the boycott ending, Education Minister Lee Ju-ho unveiled an “emergency plan” on 6 October aimed at stabilising medical school operations.

While maintaining the government’s policy against collective leave, the plan allows medical schools to approve leave requests on condition that students agree to return in time for the next academic year which will begin on 1 March 2025.

Reiterating that collective leave will continue to be disallowed, the ministry urged universities to work closely with students and offer individual counselling to ensure their return this year without overburdening them academically.

It also advised universities to closely monitor students who do not return this year and to confirm they intend to re-enrol by 2025. The ministry said it is considering shortening the medical school curriculum from the current six years to five.

Widespread student absences

Of 19,374 registered students at medical schools nationwide, only 548 have attended their classes in the fall semester of the 2024 academic year which began in August, according to data submitted by the education committee lawmaker Jin.

Data from eight national universities submitted to another education committee lawmaker Kang Kyung-sook revealed that over 40% of second-semester courses had no students enrolled.

SNU, for instance, reported no first-year medical students enrolled in any second-semester courses, and other national universities faced similar disruption in medical education.

At Kangwon National University, 73% of second-semester courses had zero students enrolled. Similar trends were observed at institutions such as Chungbuk National University and Chungbuk National University.

Even in courses in which students were enrolled, attendance was minimal. For instance, only two students attended one course at Kangwon National University, while the rest had just one student each.

At Gyeongsang National University, no third-year medical courses were offered, and for the few that were offered, only one to five students attended.

Pusan National University saw no more than six students in most courses, with most classes having fewer than five students.

Kang noted that medical schools across the country were already experiencing serious disruption, adding universities will face the additional challenge of accommodating the increased intake of students next year.

In the face of the government's policy to expand medical school admissions, some male students have chosen to abandon plans to serve as military doctors and opted for active-duty military service instead.

Data provided to Jin showed over 1,000 medical students have taken leave to enlist, a figure more than six times higher than last year’s numbers.