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North Korea Promises Improvements to Its Educational System North Korea’s Leaders Promise Improvements to Educational System
(about 11 hours later)
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea’s Parliament convened on Tuesday for a rare second session in a single year, amid speculation among outside analysts that the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, might use the meeting to reshuffle his government and discuss economic reforms. SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea’s leadership ended a rare second session of Parliament in a single year on Tuesday without making the announcements on economic reforms that many analysts had expected.
But the one-day session ended instead with an announcement of changes to the isolated country’s educational system — changes that analysts saw as potentially popular with the North Korean people. The rubber-stamp legislature extended compulsory education to 12 years from 11, promised more classrooms and said that teachers would be given priority in the distribution of food and fuel rations, according to the North’s official Korean Central News Agency. The one-day session ended instead with an announcement of changes to the isolated country’s educational system, including adding a year of free education that analysts saw as potentially popular with the North Korean people.
The Supreme People’s Assembly also pledged to end the “unruly mobilization of students” for activities outside school. The official report did not elaborate on this; however, since famine struck North Korea in the mid-1990s, mobilizing students to gather firewood and animal waste for fertilizer has become a common practice in the country’s schools, and a major parental grievance. It is unclear what the silence on economic reforms means. Recent reports by the South Korean press and Seoul-based Web sites that rely on sources in North Korea have said that the country’s new leader, Kim Jong-un, was considering a series of important changes to try to jump-start the moribund economy, including giving more incentives to farms and factories to increase productivity.
Analysts in South Korea said that in putting education at the center of the first policy changes made public under his rule, Mr. Kim was trying to reinforce the public’s faith in his family’s dynastic regime. The country has begun economic reforms in the past, but then backtracked.
“This could prove popular among North Korean people, if it’s implemented,” said Chang Yong-seok of the Institute for Peace and Unification Studies at Seoul National University. Analysts in South Korea said that in putting education at the center of the first policy changes made public under his leadership, Mr. Kim was trying to reinforce the public’s faith in the country’s dynastic regime.
Since taking over after the death of his father, Kim Jong-il, in December, Kim Jong-un has sought to project an image as a youthful leader who is accessible to his people, and particularly as one who cares for the country’s children. He dedicated one of his first public speeches to North Korean children, has ordered improvements to amusement parks and was pictured in the state media holding kindergartners on his lap. “Perhaps North Korea believed that its economic programs were still in too early a stage of development, and too experimental, to be made public,” said Chang Yong-seok of the Institute for Peace and Unification Studies at Seoul National University. “Instead, Kim Jong-un presented what could be a more ambitious, longer-term plan of normalizing his country’s educational system.”
The parliamentary session in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, was watched closely for indications of policy shifts under Mr. Kim. Outside analysts had speculated that he might use the session to discuss economic reforms, like giving more incentives to farms and factories to increase productivity, which various South Korean news outlets have reported as being under consideration. But the official report Tuesday made no mention of such changes. The move would seem to fit with Mr. Kim’s attempts in recent months to at least appear to be open to change and attuned to his people’s needs. The North Korean education system has been in ruins since the famine in the 1990s deprived most schools of heating fuel, adequate food rations and school supplies, deprivations that some analysts believe continue today.
“Perhaps North Korea believed that its economic programs were still in too early a stage of development, and too experimental, to be made public,” Mr. Chang said. “Instead, Kim Jong-un presented what could be a more ambitious, longer-term plan of normalizing his country’s educational system.” The rubber-stamp legislature extended compulsory education to 12 years from 11, promised more classrooms and said that teachers would be given priority in the distribution of food and fuel rations, according to the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.
The Assembly voted to extend state-sponsored free schooling to 12 years, for all children from ages 5 to 17. Previously, such schooling ended at 16. The legislature said the change was to meet the requirements of “the age of knowledge-based economy and the trend of the world,” a term that has been favored under Mr. Kim. The Supreme People’s Assembly also pledged to end the “unruly mobilization of students” for activities outside school. The official report did not elaborate on this; however, since famine struck North Korea in the mid-1990s, mobilizing students to gather firewood and human and animal waste for fertilizer has become a common practice in the country’s schools, and a major parental grievance, according to defectors.
The report, which stressed education in computer technology and foreign languages, said the legislature promised to build more classrooms and dormitories and to ensure that school buses run on time. It did not say how the North would finance the first major overhaul of its educational system in four decades. The report did not say how the North would finance the first major overhaul of its educational system in four decades, and it is unclear how far the government will be willing to go in changing an education system that defectors say focuses much of its time on state propaganda. (According to defectors, students have been taught how to add and subtract by counting the number of “American imperialist enemies” they want to kill, and the North Korean report on Tuesday indicated that ideological education would continue.)
The legislature said it would crack down on “mobilizing students for purposes other than state mobilization.” That, in effect, meant that the country’s use of young students for a mass gymnastics festival — a key feature of its national propaganda — would continue, analysts said. Thousands of children are trained every year for the show, which also serves as a source of foreign currency from tourists. Although the report stressed the importance of education in computer technology, so far the country does not appear to have loosened its tight grip on information. Except for its elite, the country is cut off from the Internet, although the government has recently stressed that its companies are increasingly using computers.
Since taking over after the death of his father, Kim Jong-il, in December, Kim Jong-un has sought to project an image as a youthful leader who is accessible to his people, and particularly as one who cares for the country’s children. He dedicated one of his first public speeches to North Korean children, has ordered improvements to amusement parks and was pictured in the state news media holding kindergartners on his lap.
The legislature said that stretching the number of years children are in school was intended to meet the requirements of “the age of knowledge-based economy and the trend of the world,” a term that has been favored under Mr. Kim.
The report, which emphasized the need for proficiency in foreign languages, said the legislature promised to build more classrooms and dormitories and to ensure that school buses run on time.
“Kim Jong-un is trying to rebuild a loyalty in his socialist system by emphasizing free compulsory education,” said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul. “One more year of education also means producing a better work force for the regime.”“Kim Jong-un is trying to rebuild a loyalty in his socialist system by emphasizing free compulsory education,” said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul. “One more year of education also means producing a better work force for the regime.”
Meanwhile, the construction of a new North Korean launching pad designed to support the tests of rockets bigger than the one tested in April is slowing down, said 38 North, a Web site affiliated with Johns Hopkins University. It cited commercial satellite imagery taken of the Musudan-ri site on the North’s northeast coast on Aug. 29.
North Korea has halted construction of fuel and oxidizer buildings at the site, possibly because of recent heavy rains, 38 North said. The slowdown could push back the completion of the new complex, originally estimated to be around the middle of this decade, by one to two years, it said.
But it said that the same imagery indicated that North Korea was refurbishing the existing launching pad, last used in 2009 to test fire the Unha-2 rocket. The North’s Unha-3 rocket that was launched in April blasted off from a separate site near the country’s northwestern tip.
All of those rockets failed to complete their designed flights, indicating that North Korea still has a long way to go before mastering the technology needed to deliver a warhead on intercontinental ballistic missiles.