One in five elementary schools nationwide had fewer than 60 students last year amid a critically low birth rate.

According to data from the Ministry of Education and the Korea Educational Development Institute on Monday, as of last year, one-thousand-424 elementary schools, or 23-point-one percent of the six-thousand-175 nationwide excluding satellite campuses, had 60 or fewer students.

By region, South Jeolla Province had the most schools with less than 60 students with 212, followed by North Gyeongsang Province at 207, North Jeolla Province with 206, South Chungcheong Province with 177, South Gyeongsang Province with 168 and Gangwon Province with 165 schools.

On the other hand, there were 17 such schools in Incheon, 15 each in Busan and Jeju, nine in Ulsan, eight in Gwangju, seven in Daejeon, four each in Seoul and Sejong City and three schools in Daegu, showing a large regional gap.

The number of kindergarten students is also on the decline, with two-thousand-617 kindergartens with ten or fewer in 2023, or 31-percent of the total number of schools.