Key points
- Students have agreed to return to school: Korean Medical Association
- Some 8,300 students are likely to return to school
- South Korea’s PM welcomes the end of the boycott
ISLAMABAD: Thousands of South Korean medical students are set to return to classrooms after a 17-month boycott.
AFP reported that South Korean healthcare was plunged into chaos early last year when then-president Yoon Suk Yeol moved to sharply increase medical school admissions, citing an urgent need to boost doctor numbers to meet growing demand in a rapidly aging society.
The initiative met fierce protest, prompting junior doctors to walk away from hospitals and medical students to boycott their classrooms, with operations cancelled and service provision disrupted countrywide.
The measure was later watered down, and the government eventually offered to scrap it in March 2025, after Yoon was impeached over his disastrous declaration of martial law.
“No specific timeline”
AFP cited a spokesperson for the Korean Medical Association as saying, “Students have agreed to return to school”.
The Korean Medical Students’ Association said in an earlier statement that the students had reached this decision because a continued boycott “could cause the collapse of the fundamentals of medical systems”.
Some 8,300 students are expected to return to school, but no specific timeline has been provided.
BBC reported that South Korea’s Prime Minister Kim Min-Seok welcomed the end of the boycott, describing it as a “big step forward”.
“It’s time to take a deeper look at the medical field, the Congress, and the government, so that citizens can help solve problems,” the prime minister said in a statement.
