The Seoul Bar Association, led by President Cho Soon-yeol, has strongly opposed the Education Ministry's proposed amendment to extend the validity of the law school enrollment supplement until the 2029 academic year, urging for its immediate withdrawal.
On November 6, the Seoul Bar Association issued a statement highlighting that the enrollment supplement was initially introduced as a temporary measure to stabilize law schools during their early implementation. However, it has already been extended five times, with a sixth extension now being pursued.
The practice of filling vacancies caused by student withdrawals or expulsions with additional students outside the official quota has persisted for over a decade, undermining the transfer system mandated by law. This has led to a distorted structure where exceptions have become the norm.
According to recent data from the Education Ministry, 79.1% of vacancies in law schools nationwide over the past five years have been filled by students admitted outside the official quota. As a result, the number of law school entrants has exceeded the legal limit of 2,000 each year, reaching around 2,150. The Seoul Bar Association criticized this as a workaround to compensate for declining tuition revenue.
The association pointed out that this structure imposes burdens on both students and the legal community. Students who choose to retake their studies must go through the law school admission test and the new student selection process again, incurring an additional year of tuition fees. Furthermore, law schools, facing no financial losses, may neglect efforts to enhance educational quality and retain students.
Additionally, the ongoing selection of students outside the quota is directly linked to the supply of lawyers, intensifying competition among young lawyers for cases and potentially degrading the quality of legal services, which could harm the public. The Seoul Bar Association called for the immediate withdrawal of the amendment, the abolition of the enrollment supplement, transparency in the discussions and outcomes of the enrollment supplement task force, and the establishment of measures to normalize the academic system for transfer and re-enrollment.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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