Starting in the 2023 academic year, medical schools, colleges of medicine and law schools located outside the Seoul metropolitan area will be required to fill a quota of new students with regional talents. 

According to the Education Ministry on Friday, a revised law on balanced regional development that enforces the change was passed during a plenary session of the National Assembly earlier in the day. 

Colleges of medicine, pharmacy and nursing located outside the greater Seoul area, as well as special graduate schools including medical and law schools in those regions, will be subject to the new regulation starting with their recruitment of would-be freshmen in 2023. Currently, they are only advised to do so without any penalty or disadvantage imposed on those who do not comply. 

The criterion used in recruiting such students will also be strengthened. Currently, those graduating from high schools located in the same regions as the colleges they apply for are deemed as regional talents. 

But under the revision - effective in 2028 - they will also have to have attended middle schools from the same regions as the universities, in addition to residing in those regions throughout their secondary school years.