Chapter 401
The Medical Academy was one of the higher education institutions that King Sejong decided to establish through the reforms.
As the reforms entered their later stages, Sejong, after reviewing the process so far, once again publicly expressed his intention to establish official higher education institutions.
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Until then, being “someone’s disciple” or “someone’s child” was what proved a person’s level of education and ability. However, this lacked objectivity to become an official certification standard.
Of course, people were filtered through the civil service examination, but those who entered through hereditary privilege were a problem. Simply trusting and appointing someone because they were “someone’s disciple” or “someone’s child” was becoming increasingly problematic. As the reforms progressed, the work of the government running Joseon became incomparably more difficult in both quantity and quality compared to the past.
In this process, Sejong and the ministers trained by him began to strictly evaluate the work performance of officials.
This came as an enormous burden to both those who appointed middle managers through hereditary privilege and the appointees themselves. Those who had appointed people lost points in their personnel evaluations for not properly judging people, and those who had taken on positions without proper practical experience received painful deductions along with evaluations of insufficient ability.
Being able to enter through hereditary privilege meant that one’s father was a high-ranking official. However, the ministers who had witnessed what happened to Hwang Hui because of his sons had to evaluate work more thoroughly than anyone.
Therefore, as mentioned before, cases of entering official positions through hereditary privilege gradually decreased.