Unification Media Group (UMG): As North Korea enters the school winter holidays, private for-profit education services are kicking into high gear. Although the North proclaims its educational system is equal for all, the reality on the ground is quite different. To learn more about the origins of these private education services and the reason for their rise in popularity, we turn to reporter Seol Song Ah.
Seol Song Ah (Seol): While out of school tuition is perfectly legal in most countries, it remains officially illegal in North Korea. Despite this, there is a large and growing number of such services becoming available. In the past, private tutors focused mostly on foreign languages and other core subjects, but now the scale and variety has expanded considerably. There are even special courses for gifted students.
The North Korean authorities have been trying to crack down on the private education services being offered during the winter break. Ironically, the modern private education system is an evolution of education programs that were previously offered to the gifted and talented by the authorities in the past.
UMG: Can you explain the origin of North Korea’s education system for the gifted and talented?
Seol: The education system for gifted and talented students began in 1960. At the time, it had unofficial specialty programs for art and physical education. There was also a natural sciences program as well. They were unofficial because the program’s mere existence ran contrary to the egalitarian principles of socialist education policy. Then in the early 1980s, Kim Jong Il made the programs official.
To develop these talented students, Pyongyang Middle School Number One opened in 1984. One year later, each province got its own number one middle school. Until 1994, there were approximately ten Number One middle schools throughout the country. Kim Jong Il ordered further expansion of the schools for the gifted and talented in 1995. That’s when the Moranbong Number One Middle School was founded in Pyongyang, marking the inauguration of the specialized schools on a more local level. In South Pyongan Province, the Sunchon Number One Middle School was built, and in North Pyongan Province, the Yalu River Number One Middle School was established.
There were over 200 Number One middle schools operating on the provincial, city, county, and local levels throughout the country by the mid 1990s. The Pyongyang schools for the gifted and talented suddenly became a status indicator. Those with money and influence could ensure that their children received a spot in the top schools.
UMG: In the mid 1990s, North Korea went through a tragic famine and period of economic depression. How did the middle schools continue to operate in these abysmal conditions?
Seol: During the famine, the ordinary schools couldn’t even provide textbooks to the students. The teachers were not given compensation or food, and some of them even starved to death. The national budget had dwindled, so it appears that the authorities elected to invest only in certain schools. They tried to make the education system more efficient by investing in the schools for gifted and talented students.
Unlike the specialty schools, the normal schools would send maybe one or two graduates to universities. It exposed the serious inequality in North Korean society and residents were frustrated by the developments. The students at the gifted and talented schools received university training and then went on to become party cadres with power and prestige. The ordinary students were basically being sorted into the lower songbun [social classification] category, relegated to becoming laborers. Things improved slightly a few years later. It became possible again for the normal students to attend university. The mandatory 12 year education system was instituted in 2013. But this all came too late, and the demand for private education was already established. People started believing that it was dangerous to trust the authorities.
UMG: So we can look at the rise in demand for private education as an offshoot of ineffective policy making by the North Korean authorities?
Seol: Yes, but we can look at the emergence of private education from other angles as well. Ever since the early 2000s, people in North Korea started to believe that “skills equal money.” So parents started sending their children off to tutors and technicians to get training. It was seen as an investment in the future. This kind of informal training did not exist in the 1980s. People started to fill the market need, moving into private education services. As Sino-Korean exchanges and trade flourished, Chinese language education became a popular subject for students.
As the public education system became stratified and the market mentality grew, residents started using their own money to finance their kids’ education. When asked about this recently, a source from South Pyongan Province said, “To make money during the winter break, the poor students are going around the neighborhood toting a burlap sap filled with charcoal bigger than they are. ‘Buy charcoal!’ they yell. Their teachers and the party cadres look on with indifference.”
UMG: Without the extra money, I assume these students would not be able to afford the private education they need to get ahead.
Seol: It’s hard to get ahead in both private and public education without money. The tax burden for attending school is significant. Our sources tell us that some students simply quit school and learn a trade, like computer skills or TV repair, etc. On the other hand, the middle class and the well-off students go to the schools for the gifted and talented.
The closer you are to the city center, the more expensive tuition is for private education. They say the minimum is US $20 per hour. For the more expensive classes, the private educators are devoting a lot of time to the courses, including developing their own teaching materials.
“The private educators make math packets with 2,600 problems or teach science materials that are equivalent to what the gifted and talented schools are teaching,” the source explained. “Some parents give more money to the private educators so they can teach their children one-on-one. Some even ask that their children skip a grade because they are receiving these lessons.”
UMG: I’m curious how the lesson materials from the gifted and talented schools are different from the materials at the ordinary schools.
Seol: In 2013, Pyongyang Education Publication produced a textbook called “Information Technology,” The course, taught to normal middle and high school students, describes, “how information can improve understanding of all subjects through data analysis and production.” As the book has aged, it has become less relevant and useful.
Number One Middle School courses, on the other hand, provide much deeper analysis and methods of instruction. They continually get new data and information to use as examples. This makes the material more relevant and helpful. The courses are intended to provide top notch education for those who want privileged knowledge and advanced skill sets.
UMG: With such a wide gap between ordinary and advanced courses, the private educators must be extremely busy preparing lessons.
Seol: During the intermission periods, the provincial and city-level teachers need to go to training, and then during the semester they have classes, so they are extra busy. They have to prepare for the start of each semester and they also have to take teacher rating exams. So if they plan to also teach private education classes on top of all this, it takes strong will and determination.
“Even if they provide notice during the intermission saying, ‘Not doing private education courses,’ the teachers need the money to prepare for the start of their classes, so they end up seeking students to tutor,” said a defector from South Hamgyong Province who had ten years of teaching experience before leaving North Korea in 2015. “To attract students, some teachers even decorate their private homes like a classroom.”
She added, “The purpose of teaching these classes was clearly to earn money, but when one of my students was accepted into the Kim Chaek University of Technology, I was ecstatic!”
