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Months of absence put 1,916 medical students on brink of expulsion

Published: 02 May. 2025, 18:20

Students walk by a medical school gate in Seoul on March 28. [NEWS1]

Five medical schools have issued expulsion notices to students who have been absent, without having taken official leave, for more than a month, in accordance with their academic regulations.

The Ministry of Education said Friday that these five schools, which are authorized to expel students absent for more than one month per their rules, have begun issuing expulsion notices. Students who do not return will be formally expelled.

Medical students across the country have been boycotting classes en masse to protest the government’s plan to hike the annual medical school admissions quota since February of last year.

As of Friday afternoon, Soonchunhyang University has notified 606 students, Eulji University 299 students, Inje University 557 students and CHA University’s School of Medicine 190 students. Konyang University also plans to issue expulsion notices later in the day to 264 students.

Altogether, 1,916 students across the five institutions face potential expulsion.

Typically, students can only be readmitted after expulsion if a vacancy arises. However, because first-year students from the classes of 2024 and 2025 are already enrolled, it is unlikely that any vacancies will open for readmission next year.

The Ministry of Education said that during a meeting with deans of medical schools on April 30, the schools reaffirmed that no further academic flexibility measures would be allowed and that schools must enforce their rules regarding failure or expulsion when such grounds arise.

The ministry said that students who fail to return and thus meet conditions for failing or expulsion will go through the prescribed procedures under school rules.

The ministry also instructed universities to compile and internally approve lists of students subject to failure or expulsion and said it would verify those lists during future reviews of university conditions.

The ministry sent an official notice on Wednesday to all universities instructing them to submit the status of disciplinary actions against absent medical students, along with their academic operation plans, by May 7.

Translated from the JoongAng Ilbo using generative AI and edited by Korea JoongAng Daily staff.
BY JEONG JAE-HONG [[email protected]]