One out of every five elementary schools in the country has less than 10 new students this year due to a decrease in the number of children, education ministry-related data showed Monday.

According to the school information website under the ministry-affiliated Korea Education and Research Information Service, 1,395 elementary schools in the country accepted less than 10 first year students. This is equal to 22 percent of the 6,218 elementary schools checked.

The drop is attributed to the low birth rate in the country, which naturally led to a lower number of school-aged children.

By region, South Jeolla and North Gyeongbuk provinces have the most schools with small numbers of new students: 217 schools each.

This was followed by North Jeolla Province with 187 and Gangwon Province with 179, respectively.

There are even 93 primary schools that didn’t even admit one new student for their first grade.

In the case of middle schools, some 337 of them have recruited less than 10 students, according to the information site. Eleven schools admitted no students.

Sixteen different high schools had less than 10 new students, with four having no new admittances.

The data, meanwhile, showed that the average number of students who were admitted to schools this year stood at 70 for elementary schools, 147 for middle schools and 252 for high schools.

The average number of new students entering elementary school stood at 77 in 2014 but dipped to 73 last year. (Yonhap)