A growing number of South Korean students are quitting school, not out of poverty but out of a desire to study overseas.

Representative Rhee Q-taek of the opposition Grand National Party said that while the total middle and high school dropout rate is falling, the number of those who quit school to go abroad is increasing every year.

Among some 56-thousand middle and high school students who left school last year, about 20 percent left for schools overseas or emigrated.

The ratio has steadily risen, from 13-point-eight percent in 2000 to 17-point-nine percent in 2001.