Government “There are no flaws to the level of rejection in the recommendation process for establishing a new medical school at Suncheon National University.”

The Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health and Welfare responded to various procedural issues raised by Mokpo University, which was eliminated from the competition, regarding the selection of Suncheon National University in Jeollanam-do as the new local medical school, and said, "There are no flaws at the level of rejecting the recommendation."

In a press release distributed on the 4th, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health and Welfare presented the results of their review of various issues that led to opposition from Mokpo University in the process of recommending and selecting Suncheon National University in the form of Q&A.

When it was pointed out that the Minister of Education's recommendation of a candidate university (Sunchon National University) from Gwangju Unified City of South Jeolla Province was a delegation of selection authority, the authorities drew a line by saying, "Recommendation is an intermediate step in selection."

The authorities said, "The main purpose of establishing a new local medical school is to strengthen local, essential, and public medical care, so we considered the opinion of the local government in charge of local medical policy important and requested recommendation of a candidate college. This is an intermediate step in selecting a new medical school, and the government is not bound by the recommendation of the local government."

Regarding the various issues raised by Mokpo University regarding the Unified City's candidate university recommendation process, it was revealed that after requesting explanatory materials from the Unified City and multiple external legal advisors, the review opinion was confirmed that there were no defects at a level that warranted rejection of the recommendation.

For this reason, it was determined that a re-examination of the integrated city recommendation requested by the Mokpo community and a direct review by the government were unnecessary.

The authorities also did not accept the argument that Suncheon National University failed to meet the essential requirements by only submitting a plan to secure land, even though it is required to own land for a medical school according to university establishment operation regulations.

The government emphasized, “There is no explicit provision that requires acquisition of ownership of the educational facility site before selecting a new medical school or allocating seats to the medical school,” and added, “The plan to secure educational facilities in the plan for establishing a new medical school presented by the government to local governments is intended to review future plans as well as cases that have already been secured.”

Suncheon National University falsely stated in its application that it had already secured the site, and the Jeonnam Research Institute responded that it was difficult to view it as a mandatory point deduction as it concluded that it was false despite the point that it did not deduct points despite the false information.

In addition, the Jeonnam Research Institute did not conclude that there were any flaws in the fact that there were no design and architecture experts at the time of the candidate university selection review and that medical vulnerability assessment items were not reflected.

The Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health and Welfare plan to form a regional medical school establishment promotion group involving local governments, universities, and experts with the goal of 'admission of new students by 2030' to specify plans for the establishment of new medical schools and teaching hospitals and begin full-scale implementation.