4-Year 'Unified Military Academy' to Be Established in Daejeon... "Severing History and Tradition"

[Anchor]

The Ministry of National Defense and the Democratic Party have finalized a basic plan to establish a unified Armed Forces Military Academy in Jaundae, Daejeon, by merging the existing Army, Navy, and Air Force academies. The government plans to finalize the project around October after gathering opinions from various sectors, but the alumni associations of the military academies are strongly protesting, calling it a "scheme to sever history and tradition."

Defense correspondent Kim Taehun reports.

[Reporter]

The Ministry of National Defense and the Democratic Party have presented three main justifications for the integration of the military academies.

These include improving inefficiencies where support staff outnumber cadets, the recent rapid changes in the nature of warfare, and the need for independent combined command capabilities following the transition of wartime operational control.

[Ahn Gyu-baek / Minister of National Defense: It is a critical time to implement a new educational system, secure excellent faculty, and provide a state-of-the-art educational environment to train officers who can meet future security challenges.]

The core of the government and ruling party's basic plan is to abolish the individual Army, Navy, and Air Force academies and establish a new 'Armed Forces Military Academy' in Jaundae, Daejeon, where military educational facilities are concentrated.

Instead of a 2+2 system, where lower-class students are educated at a unified academy and upper-class students are trained separately at their respective service academies, the new system will involve four years of integrated training and education at the Armed Forces Military Academy.

Lower-class students will focus on common liberal arts education to build capabilities for future warfare, while upper-class students will receive specialized, in-depth education within 'departments' tailored to each military branch.

The faculty composition, currently consisting mostly of active-duty officers with only 24% civilian professors, will also be restructured to increase the proportion of civilian professors—who will receive treatment comparable to faculty at national universities—to over 50%.

As for the existing academies, the Korea Military Academy in Nowon-gu, Seoul, will be used as an alternative educational facility until the Armed Forces Military Academy is completed, while the Air Force Academy in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province, and the Naval Academy in Jinhae, South Gyeongsang Province, will be converted into facilities for specialized branch training.

The Ministry of National Defense explained that detailed plans, including the launch date of the Armed Forces Military Academy and the scale of cadet recruitment, will be finalized around October following a process of gathering opinions through public hearings and policy briefings.

The alumni associations of the Army, Navy, and Air Force academies issued a statement today (July 16), protesting that "the government is shutting down the military academies when reforms could have been achieved through facility investment and organizational restructuring," adding that it is a "scheme to sever the identity, history, and tradition of the military academies."

(Video reporting: Oh Young-chun, Video editing: Lee Seung-yeol)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.