The number of South Korean students who view North Korea as an enemy has drastically fallen. 

The Unification Ministry on Tuesday announced the outcome of a survey conducted on around 83-thousand students at 597 elementary, middle and high schools across the country between October and December. 

Asked how they view the North, only five-point-two percent said it is an enemy of the South compared with 41 percent a year earlier. 

 The portion of students who chose to see North Korea as a partner to cooperate with rose from 41 percent to 51 percent while more than 12 percent said the North is a country to help, up from ten-point-eight percent. Some 28 percent said the communist regime needs to be guarded against.

Those linking the North with the image of a dictatorship or dictators also sharply dropped from 49 percent to 27 percent.

The survey had a 95 percent confidence level with a margin of error of plus or minus zero-point-34 percentage points.