The government on Tuesday announced measures to reinforce Korean language education for children of multicultural families and to expand support for foreign wives as part of efforts to help them better assimilate into Korean society.

The latest move comes as increasing numbers of Korean men are marrying foreign wives, and migrant workers continue to settle here for employment opportunities.

Under the envisioned comprehensive action plans for this year with a budget of 93.3 billion won ($83.6 million), the government decided to increase the number of Korean language instructors working at the multicultural family support centers nationwide by 50 percent to 300 by the end of this year.

The government also plans to add “the Korean as a Second Language” subject to the regular curriculum in schools, which have a certain rate of foreign students, according to the Prime Minister’s Office.

The moves aims to expand support for the children from multicultural families whose numbers have soared 3.4 times over the past five years to 151,154 in 2011. Such multicultural students are expected to take up more than 1 percent of the country’s total primary and secondary school students by 2014, according to government data. (Yonhap News)