SEOUL, Feb. 8 - South Korea will spend 401.1 billion won (342.76 million U.S. dollars) on training highly-skilled technicians in the information technology (IT) sector by 2013, the government said Monday.

The Ministry of Knowledge Economy said the new plan will focus on training future workforce by expanding its investment in enhancing specialized graduate study programs in the IT field, as it will increase the investment from 49 percent of total budget to 67 percent by 2013.

Given the shortage of employees with master's degrees, the ministry said the investment in supporting undergraduate level education will drop to 5 percent of total budget from current 38 percent.

Under the new plan, graduate students will be given a chance to take part in a government initiated program on software research and development in cooperation with IT firms, according to the ministry.