One in three student defectors born outside N. Korea

More than one in three young North Koreans defecting to South Korea were born outside the North, a scholar said Sunday, raising the need to strengthen their Korean language study.

Kim Yoon-young of the state-run Korea Educational Development Institute (KEDI), citing the education ministry's data, said that 36 percent, or 608, of 1,681 student defectors living in South Korea as of April 2011 were born in China and other third-party countries.

Of 1,020 defectors attending elementary schools here, in particular, the ratio of births outside the North reached as high as 57 percent, the KEDI researcher noted.

"A large number of student defectors fail to adapt to school life in the South due to their limited learning capabilities," said the researcher.

"In case of young defectors born in China and other foreign countries, their limited Korean language skills hinder basic school education."

The dropout rate among student defectors has steadily declined from 10.8 percent in 2007 to 4,7 percent in 2010, but still remains higher than the corresponding rate for the ordinary students, estimated at around 1 percent. (Yonhap)

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