By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter

Korean college and universities are globalizing with the number of foreign students seeking degrees in Korea jumping 20 percent year-on-year.

There were 50,591 students from other countries in Korea in April, accounting for 1.41 percent of the total number of college students.

The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology announced Monday that the total was 10,000 more than in April 2008.

The total increase can be attributed to the 36,525 foreigners seeking bachelor degrees, as the number of foreigners vying for their master's and doctorate degrees stayed relatively constant at 10,697 and 3,369, respectively.

By nationality, China topped the list at around 40,000 students, accounting for 78 percent of the total. Mongolia came next with 1,632 students, followed by Vietnam and Japan with 2.9 percent and 2.2 percent, respectively.

A total of 86 percent are studying at their own expense; 8.24 percent were invited by Korean colleges; and 1.7 percent are receiving scholarships from the Korean government.

The number of foreign professors is also increasing. There are currently 4,127 overseas educators, representing 5.5 percent of the total number of faculty members, up from 3,433 last year, 2,919 in 2007 and 2,540 in 2006.

The total number of college students is nearly 3.6 million at 407 institutions, an increase of 28,244 from last year.

Among them, those who took leave of absence increased by 14,033 to 1.097 million. One third of those students left due to their inability to pay tuition, the ministry said.

While the number of university students is increasing, the ministry found that the number of elementary students hit a record low this year due to the low birthrate.

Currently, elementary schools have a total of 3.47 million pupils, almost 200,000 fewer than that of the previous year.

With the decreasing number of students, schools showed a lower ratio of students per teacher.

The ration at kindergartens is 15.2 students per teacher; elementary schools, 19.8; and middle schools, 18.4.

Among the total of 452,019 teachers across the country, 65 percent are female, but the number of female principals and vice principals stood at only 17.9 percent for elementary schools, 20 percent for middle schools and 6 percent for high schools.

kswho@koreatimes.co.kr