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SEOUL, Jan 6 (AFP) - South Korea is aiming to make all schools smoke-free by June as an alarming study showed that lighting up among teenagers was on the rise.

The crusade, announced by the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development, followed the release of a pan-Asian study which showed South Korea had the highest number of school smokers in Asia.

"Young people's smoking has become a serious social problem, not to mention the harm to their health" a weekend editorial in the Korea Times said, adding that the teenagers were even smoking in their school uniforms.

The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education on Friday was the first to designate all 1,171 schools in the capital no-smoking zones starting in March.

Teachers and all other adults would be prohibited from smoking on school premises, with provisional authorities to follow suit.

A survey by the Commission on Youth Protection, an anti-smoking civic group, found 27.6 percent of South Korean students between 15-years and 18-years old smoke.

The number girls of the same age who smoke has climbed from 8.1 percent in 1997 to more than 10.7 percent in 2000. The rate compares to Japan's 1.5 percent, China's 5.0 percent and Singapore's 0.2 percent.

Smoking by students in the 10-13 year-old age bracket surged from 3.9 percent in 1997 to 7.4 percent in 2000.

The survey also revealed that 12.3 percent of boys under 10 and 3.4 percent of girls were smokers last year.

The civic group said some high schools provided ashtrays in the toilets to prevent cigarette butts clogging up drainage pipes.

A government survey showed that 68.2 percent of male adults smoke, the highest figure in the world. Lung cancer was the cause of 70 percent of all cancer deaths in South Korea last year. 

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