A Revised Plan for Compulsory Primary Education in the DPRK

It happened on May 3, Juche 37 (1948) when Korea was seething with the building of a new democratic country after its liberation (August 15, 1945) from the Japanese military occupation.

That day, Comrade Kim Il Sung went over a plan of preparations for the new school year.

After carefully examining the details of the plan, including the number of schools to be built and new pupils, he asked an official that what percentage of children could attend school in the new school year.

When he was told that it was 94.3%, a high percentage which had never been measured before liberation, he was lost in deep thought for a while. Then, he stressed that the most important in making preparations for the new school year was to focus on laying a foundation for enforcing a universal compulsory primary education in the country from 1950.

The official was very surprised, as he was well aware of the fact that the complete enforcement of a universal compulsory primary education would be a mega event in the country which was liberated only a few years ago.

Kim Il Sung stressed the need to make detailed preparations for allocation of school network, construction of schools and production of textbooks, school things, uniforms and shoes so that there would be not a single school-age child excluded from education in the northern half of Korea from September 1, 1950.

Then, he said in the following vein: We should re-examine carefully once again the already-made plan for enforcing compulsory primary education in order to establish a practical system in which even children of citizens living in remote places can study free of charge and compulsorily.

According to his instruction, the plan for enforcing a compulsory primary education was worked out again.

2023-07-02