[북한읽기] Poor rural education needs to be resolved through changes in rigid systems

Children gathered at a school playground in downtown Namyang Workers’ District, North Hamgyong Province, North Korea. /Photo=Daily NK

Recently, there is news that North Korea’s Workers’ Party and education authorities are making a fuss among teachers by issuing a policy requiring teachers from provincial teaching centers and city (county) teacher (teacher) training centers to go to rural areas and provide on-site training.

According to a recent source from South Pyongan Province, the Workers’ Party’s Organization and Guidance Department and the Cabinet Ministry of Education issued a policy saying, “Now, rather than calling rural school teachers to teach at teaching centers, go out to the field and help them,” citing the substandard standards of rural school teachers as the reason.

However, the author believes that the difference in education levels between urban and rural areas in North Korean society is due not to the quality of rural teachers but to the rigidity of the education system. In fact, North Korea’s teacher training and placement is enacted and implemented according to the education policy of the Workers’ Party’s education department, and in fact, various corruptions occur here.

Specifically, when students who graduated from advanced middle schools (high schools) graduate from teachers’ colleges or teachers’ colleges in each province, they are placed in schools by the provincial and city (county) party education departments and People’s Committee education departments. At this time, competition arises as everyone tries to avoid going to rural schools, mobilizing all their connections and even paying bribes to stay in the city.

The problem doesn’t stop here. We should not overlook the fact that the most important part of the teacher placement principle is ‘grades’. In short, graduates with high grades, that is, high standards, are placed in good schools in the city. Leaving this rigid system in place and forcing urban teachers to support rural areas will only have the opposite effect.

When will North Korea’s Workers’ Party be able to get out of this pitiful situation? Urban teachers who are forced by the Labor Party to walk dozens of miles to participate in mobile education, as well as rural teachers who have to take classes for several hours and serve food and alcohol to poor families, are complaining. Are you saying you can’t hear voices saying, “How much will the level rise with actions like this?”

In North Korea, the gap in quality of education between urban and rural areas is serious. In other words, the level of education in the first middle schools established in Pyongyang and other major cities is at a satisfactory level, but in rural areas it is unbelievably low. For example, a soldier who graduated from an advanced middle school in a rural area would answer without shame when asked by the Supreme Commander, “Where is Mt. Baekdu?” by saying, “It is in Pyongyang, the capital of the revolution.”

The cause of these ills in school education is that parents and students are forced to not choose education. In North Korea, the dictionary meaning of ‘teaching knowledge to develop character’ has disappeared, and it can be said that education for rural children has virtually failed.

What needs to be resolved immediately is not raising the standards of teachers in rural schools, but improving the system. It must be acknowledged that North Korea’s school education system is extremely rigid and is causing many ills in reality. North Korea’s Workers’ Party and education authorities should keep this in mind and take action to change and improve. That is truly the best way for a bright future for the country.