About 60 South Korean teachers have been sent to Thailand this year to teach Korean to young students there, the Ministry of Education said Thursday, as demand for Korean language learning is rapidly growing in the Southeast Asian country.

The ministry said a total of 58 Korean teachers went to Thailand this year to teach Korean at as many middle and high schools across Thailand until March next year.

Ministry officials said Korean language studies are rapidly growing in popularity across Thailand.

The number of Thai schools adopting Korean as part of their regular curriculum shot up from 11 in 2010 to 82 last year, they noted. Triam Udom Suksa, known as one of Thailand's best secondary schools, is among them.

The number of Korean-learning Thais also surged from 1,600 in 2010 to about 30,000 in 2016, while the number of test-takers of TOPIK, or the Test of Proficiency in Korean, rose from 1,603 to 4,190 in the period, the officials said.

At the request of the Thai government, Seoul has sent around 60 Korean teachers to Thailand annually since 2011, with the two countries sharing the expenses.

South Korean has also been training Thai nationals as Korean teachers, they added.