Seven out of 10 students in the 2024 and 2025 medical school cohorts said they feel a decline in education quality. The situation has persisted because both cohorts are taking classes together amid doctor-government conflict and a wave of collective leaves of absence. The government plans to support staffing, facilities, and other resources, taking into account the future expansion of medical school enrollment.
According to the education sector on the 18th, the representative body of the 2024 and 2025 cohorts under the Korean Association of Medical College and Graduate School Students delivered a report with these findings to the Ministry of Education in Nov. last year. The fact-finding survey was conducted on 3,109 enrolled students in the 2024 and 2025 cohorts at 40 medical schools nationwide.
According to the survey, 69% (2,138) of the 3,109 respondents said the quality of education declined due to changes in the classroom environment. About 84% (1,076) of the 2024 cohort and 59% (1,062) of the 2025 cohort responded this way. The 2024 cohort took classes under the existing enrollment cap at matriculation but had to take classes together with the 2025 cohort starting last year.
Also, 57% (1,771) of respondents said they "had difficulty with classes due to a shortage of lecture rooms." Fifty percent (1,532) said there were not enough seats in lecture rooms.
Ninety-five percent (2,954) of all respondents worried about problems after entering the clinical years, such as overcrowded trainees, hospital capacity limits, and a shortage of intern positions. Ninety-two percent (2,836) answered that the current turmoil is likely to spill over not only into the clinical years but also into the intern and resident stages.
They cited the expansion of educational facilities (33%) and the removal of uncertainty in the curriculum (33%) as the most urgent issues to improve in the current medical education setting. Twenty-five percent of all respondents said spatial separation between cohorts is needed.
Professors are also concerned about declining education quality. Kim Taek-woo, president of the Korean Medical Association Organization, said at an emergency press conference on the 10th, "If students on leave in the 2025 academic year and those returning from military service come back for the 2027 academic year, the number of students will surge dramatically."
The government plans to move to improve medical school education conditions in line with the enrollment increase. The Health and Medical Policy Deliberation Committee plans to support each university so it can secure personnel, facilities, and equipment appropriate to its enrollment size. The Ministry of Education also said it will collect improvement plans for educational conditions from each university and conduct regular inspections.