The heavy spending on free-school meal services to all primary and secondary students is causing a decrease in educational support for children from lower-income families, government data showed on Sunday.

The Ministry of Education compiled the overall budget of 17 provincial and municipal education offices across the country.

According to the report, the total expenditure on educational support to primary and secondary students has increased by 504 billion won ($462 million) to 3.184 trillion won ($2.9 billion) from a year ago.

But, despite the higher annual budget, only 20 percent or 386,000 high school students will receive full tuition support this year, about 61,000 fewer than the previous year as the education offices cut the budget by 17.6 billion won to 428 billion won.

The education offices also covered fees to use the Internet for 252,752 students last year, but the number is down to 239,737 this year, the data showed.

Officials from the ministry admitted that the drop in educational support is attributed largely to the growing demands for free-school meal services.

Korea had about 3.97 million pupils in primary and secondary schools entitled to free schools meals at the end of last year. But the number of beneficiaries has risen to 4.36 million this year, resulting in the increase of the budget by 492.4 billion won to 2.43 trillion, which now accounts for nearly 76 percent of the total budget of all education offices.

Critics say the government has underestimated the impact of the free-school meals on its education budget, while the lack of means to raise funds for the new government’s massive welfare project is fueling discord among the central and municipal governments.

Gyeonggi Province Governor Kim Moon-soo announced last month that the province will scrap the entire 87.4 billion won set aside for free school lunches in its 2014 budget. Kim claimed the cutback was inevitable due to the growing budget deficits.

The Seoul Metropolitan Government has also raised concerns about the growing financial burden of providing free child care, a key welfare project of the Park administration.

By Oh Kyu-wook (596story@heraldcorp.com)