Some 1.8 percent of the country's elementary to high school students were enrolled in gifted education last year, mostly in the fields of mathematics and natural science, the education ministry said Wednesday.

The ministry said that 110,053 students, or 1.81 percent of all 6,088,827 primary and secondary students, received advanced education, a steady increase from 0.77 percent in 2008.

Last year, 2.13 percent of elementary school students were part of gifted programs. Some 2.35 percent of middle school students and 0.84 percent of high school students had gifted education classes.

Of them, 55.9 percent attended gifted classes at school while 29.7 percent attended gifted education institutes established at the nation's education offices.

The remaining 8.9 percent attended programs at universities and colleges.

Most students selected mathematics, natural science and convergence fields for their advanced studies at 81.2 percent or 89,000 students. This was followed by those specializing in inventions with 4 percent, human science at 3.5 percent, information with 2.9 percent, and foreign languages with 2.3 percent.

A ministry official said the government will diversify the areas of study in gifted education in the future, placing more emphasis on language and information, rather than mathematics and natural sciences.

The official said the government will start operating a national creative manpower management system this year to collect and analyze more information on the students' education, research activities, awards and advanced studies at universities and institutes. (Yonhap)