Schools in rural areas are increasingly finding it difficult to attract new recruits, with declining number of students and parents preferring to educate their children in the cities.

Some 120 elementary, middle and high schools across the country will not be holding an entrance ceremony this year since there are no applicants, according to Yonhap. Most are elementary schools located in the smaller fishing or farming communities, with poor education infrastructure.

Another 130 schools have just one new student.

A branch of Yeonam elementary school in Ulsan had just one first year student in 2013 and 2014, but failed to recruit anyone this year. A total of 11 elementary schools had less than 10 first year students for 2015, according to Ulsan Metropolitan Office of Education.

South Jeolla was the hardest hit region with 47 schools without freshmen this year, as against 16 in 2014. According to officials, 11 schools in the area have just one student, which means they are likely to shut down soon.

Last year, 17 schools in the area were shut down and seven more will face the ax in March.

In January, Gangwon Provincial Office of Education announced it would grant additional recruitment for 68 high schools with low freshmen retention rates. But a total of 19 schools in the province failed to get even one applicant.

“Such a low retention rate is due to both the growing trend of people leaving rural areas and the overall number of students declining. We have no choice but to work on improving our education programs to attract more students,” said a GPOE official.

Korea is expected to have around 1.59 million middle school students this year, according to local private education firm Haneul Education, which will be 120,000 less than last year. The firm, citing Education Ministry data, noted that it was the biggest-ever decline in that particular category. The number of high school students declined by about 20,000.

But the number of elementary school students is projected to be similar to last year, which shows that the students-to-seniors ratio in rural areas is also to blame. In 2013, only 6.9 percent of the population in Gangwon Province has 14 or younger, a significant decrease from 11.4 percent in 2003. In the same year, senior citizens jumped from 26.3 percent to 36.8 percent.

By Yoon Min-sik and news reports (minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com)