Plans to establish a national medical school in South Jeolla Province — a long-cherished goal for residents of the region — are now at risk of falling apart entirely.
Mokpo National University and Suncheon National University, which had been negotiating a merger as a prerequisite for the new medical school, failed to narrow their differences before Thursday's deadline for submitting applications to the government. The two universities and their communities were unable to reach an agreement despite having secured a government pledge to establish a national medical school in a region without one — effectively squandering an opportunity handed to them.
The deadline for submitting a medical school establishment plan to the Ministry of Education is Thursday. The two universities failed to file a proper application after prolonged disagreement and an inability to find a compromise.
The Jeonnam-Gwangju Special Metropolitan City issued a statement Thursday afternoon saying it hoped the two universities would reach a merger agreement before the submission deadline, but negotiations are understood to have effectively broken down.
With the two universities unable to reach an agreement, attention has turned to finding alternatives.
The Jeonnam-Gwangju Special Metropolitan City said it plans to submit its own medical school establishment proposal directly to the Ministry of Education if talks collapse for good.
The proposal covers three areas: the case for establishing a medical school, the proposed enrollment size, and the local government's support plan.
In an official communication sent to the special city and others on Aug. 6, the Ministry of Education instructed the parties to agree on a merger plan — including the locations of the medical school and university hospital — on the premise that a medical school would be established at a merged institution combining Mokpo and Suncheon national universities, and to submit an implementation plan accordingly.
If the two universities fail to merge and cannot meet the conditions set by the ministry, establishing a medical school at all could become difficult.
The Jeonnam-Gwangju Special Metropolitan City plans to ask the Ministry of Education to revise the relevant guidelines.
The specific content of the request has not been finalized, but the city is understood to be seeking a change to the existing framework, which requires a university merger as a precondition for establishing a medical school.
Options being discussed include the ministry delegating authority to the local government to hold an open competition for a single candidate university to recommend to the ministry, or the city setting its own evaluation criteria to select one university and submit a solo application.
Either way, significant local fallout is unavoidable. Both options are expected to draw fierce opposition from whichever university and region is left out.
"If the universities do not merge, we will submit only the special city's own opinion to the Ministry of Education," a Jeonnam-Gwangju Special Metropolitan City official said. "Even without a merger, we cannot give up on the medical school — it is what this region has long wanted — so we will work with the Ministry of Education and others to find a way forward."
sij@heraldcorp.com
