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The Ministry of Education released the figures over the weekend, revealing that the students did not register before the April 30 deadline for the spring semester.

South Korea currently has more than 19,400 students enrolled across 40 medical and pharmaceutical schools. In addition to the students held back, 46 have been expelled, and over 3,000 pre-med students received warnings, The Korea Herald reported.

Only about 6,700 students, or 34.4% of the total, are attending classes in full. The remainder have registered for just one subject, reportedly to avoid triggering academic penalties.

Most medical schools in South Korea enforce attendance policies in which students automatically fail if they miss more than a third—or in some cases, a quarter—of total class hours.

The protest began in March last year when the government proposed raising the annual medical school admission quota from 3,000 to 5,000 in response to a shortage of healthcare professionals.

Authorities argued that more doctors were needed, especially in rural and underserved areas. However, many in the medical field contended that poor pay and working conditions were the real issues impacting healthcare delivery and needed to be addressed first.

In January, the health ministry reported that approximately 90% of trainee doctors, out of 13,531 eligible, had resigned from their hospital appointments, according to Reuters.

Together with physicians, medical students strongly opposed the proposed quota increase, arguing that the root of the problem was not the number of doctors, but unequal distribution, difficult working environments, and broader systemic flaws.

After more than a year of stalemate, the government agreed in April to suspend the planned admission quota increase for 2026, contingent on doctors and students returning to hospitals and classrooms.

“Our government’s position that the medical school quota should be increased has not changed,” Education Minister Lee Ju-ho was quoted by Reuters in March.

The Korean Medical Association, the country’s main doctors’ lobby group, stated that it was up to the students to determine how to respond to the government’s offer. However, it described the plan to raise the quota as a “failed policy” and called for renewed discussions.

According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), South Korea has one of the lowest doctor-to-patient ratios among developed countries, with just 2.6 doctors per 1,000 people.