The South Korean government will hold the nationwide medical licensing exam twice next year.

The Health Ministry said on Thursday that the decision was made to prevent a vacuum in medical practitioners, after some two-thousand-700 medical students boycotted the exam this year in protest of the government's health care reforms.

The ministry had previously refused to give the students a second chance, after the exam was rescheduled once and they were given opportunities to reapply.

The first round of exams will be moved up to late January.

Some six-thousand students, including the two-thousand-700 from this year, are expected to take the test in 2021.