SEOUL, A Seoul court on Tuesday rejected an injunction by medical students to halt their schools’ presidents from increasing admission quotas, amid a prolonged walkout by trainee doctors against the highly contested plan.
The Seoul Central District Court denied the injunction filed by 485 medical students against the presidents of three state-funded universities and an association of college education to halt the schools’ plans to increase medical school seats.
They claimed the quota increase could seriously erode the quality of education provided by the schools to the extent that it may infringe upon constitutionally guaranteed rights for learning.
The court said the injunction request against state-funded universities should be filed with the Seoul Administrative Court, which is specialized in disputes concerning the exercise of public power.
It is one of several suits filed by the medical community against the government’s earlier plan to allocate an additional 2,000 medical school admission seats to
universities across the nation.
National universities in provincial cities were previously considered the biggest beneficiaries of the enrollment quota increase but have decided to reduce their admission seats allocated by the government by up to 50 percent.
Currently, universities are in the process of updating their admission plans for the 2025 academic year to reflect increased medical student quotas and are expected to announce them in late May.
Source: Yonhap News Agency