DPRK Education Reform Underway
Institute for Far Eastern Studies
NK Brief No. 07-9-11-1
9/11/2007
The 2007 New Year’s Joint Editorial revealed that this year, North Korea is promoting radical educational reform, boldly casting out ‘cram education,’ and other remnants of their old system while emphasizing ‘Education Revolution.’ North Korea’s new educational reform can generally be summarized into four major parts: early childhood education and the standardization of foreign language and computer education, emphasis on ingenuity over memorization, strengthening practical education (gifted education), and on-going reeducation of teachers and professors.
In order to support this kind of reform, North Korea established an education fund in 2005, and has remodeled more than 70 middle and high schools in Pyongyang, showing their increased interest and investment in the country’s education. The idea attracting the most attention is that efforts are being poured into cultivating “capable beings who learn one thing, understand tens, and use it to do hundreds” no longer focusing on cram education and rote memorization.
The most representative example is the implementation of multiple-choice exams. It was revealed that last year, North Korea debuted multiple-choice questions in their college entrance exams (similar to South Korea), and focused on assessing reasoning ability and judgment, comprehensive analysis, and other abilities. In the past, the exams were subjective questions that were wholly based on memorization.
Emphasizing the importance of computer education in the era of information technology (IT), the North Korean administration also adopted a radical measure to teach only major classes, history of revolution (The Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il Movements), mathematics, and foreign languages to students in the ‘gifted’ computer program, while removing physics, chemistry, biology and other ‘unnecessary’ subjects from their curriculum.
Of course, it is still unknown as to how successful an outcome these educational reforms will bring North Korea, especially because gifted education and on-going reeducation of teachers and professors are all measures that North Korea has implemented in the past. In 1984, upon return from his visit to Eastern Europe, Kim Il-Sung declared that “one gifted scientist can feed and save ten-thousand of his countrymen,” and ordered more gifted education programs. The following year, the Pyongyang Senior Middle School No. 1 was established, where only the country’s top gifted students were educated. Within two years, these senior middle schools spread into every province in the country.
North Korea mandated that every teacher and professor go through a 1-3 month long reeducation program every 3-5 years. The reeducation programs differed from field to field, and not even Party and administrative staff, doctors, police officers, or commissioned officers were exempt. However, due to an underdeveloped system and weak educational content, these measures did not produce many results.
Meanwhile, North Korea has adopted a radical measure to implement foreign language and computer education into the third grade curriculum at elementary schools beginning next April. This is two years earlier than foreign language and computer classes were offered in the past; the first and sixth years in senior middle school. These measures reflect the North Korean government’s sense of urgency in their belief that without foreign language capabilities, it would be impossible to import advanced scientific technologies from abroad to develop their own technology in hopes of attaining economic development goals set forth in the July 1 Economic Reform Measures of 2002.
