The number of multicultural students in South Korea has risen by more than tenfold in the past decade, data showed Sunday.

According to data from the Ministry of Education, 99,186 multicultural children are currently studying at elementary, middle and high schools in the country, accounting for 1.68 percent of the overall student population.

In 2006, there were 9,389 multicultural students who accounted for 0.12 percent of the total.

Of the multicultural students, 24.2 percent had a Vietnamese parent, followed by 21.3 percent with a Chinese parent, 13 percent with a Japanese parent, 12.4 percent with a Filipino parent and 12.4 percent with a Chinese parent of Korean ethnicity, the data showed.