The Ministry of Education has been criticized for avoiding mentioning the medical school enrollment quota increase and medical education issues in the administration's annual parliamentary audit.

The ministry also came under fire due to its insufficient data submission.

On Tuesday, Minister of Education Lee Ju-ho appeared before the National Assembly Education Committee and reported on the status of major policy initiatives, including integrating early childhood education and childcare, introducing AI digital textbooks, and regional education.

“The government will consistently promote education reform amid changes in the policy environment, such as low birthrate and regional decline,” Lee said.

However, Minister Lee’s report on increasing medical students was extremely limited. “We will invest about 5 trillion won ($3.7 billion) by 2030 in improving medical education conditions to build a foundation for excellent medical education and train medical personnel who save lives and regions,” Lee said without elaborating further.

Rep. Kim Young-ho of the opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), who heads the Education Committee, pointed out Lee’s lack of explanation on this critical issue, saying, “The ministry's work report did not say a word about the issue of expanding medical students.

However, Lee briefly replied, saying, “I will explain it well during the interpellation session.”

Rep. Kim again pointed out that “the issue of medical student increase should have been included in the administrative report before the interpellation.” Still, Lee did not respond.

The ministry's failure to submit data on medical colleges’ approval of their students’ leaves of absence also caused a controversy.

“Don’t you have documents on how you collected opinions from medical schools regarding the recently announced contingency plan to normalize medical school enrollment?” Rep. Ko Min-jung, also a DPK lawmaker, asked. “The ministry might have not announced (the contingency plan) without referring to anything, but there is no response from it regarding the submission of related materials.”

The committee pointed out that 40 medical schools' authority to allow students’ leave was not identified, and letters of request for medical student leave and replies exchanged between the ministry and the Korean Association of Medical Colleges were missing. It demanded that they be submitted during Tuesday’s audit.