One year since the introduction of regulations extending compulsory education from 11 to 12 years, Kim Jong Eun has been praised in the North Korean media for his “love for the next generation and for the future," and for North Korea's “superior education system that guarantees the strong fatherland a bright and promising future.”

Rodong Sinmun declared on the 26th, “Through 12 years of compulsory education, education quality has been appropriately raised to meet the practical demands of the knowledge economy era, and to keep abreast of world developments. In raising revolutionaries in the Juche style, ours is the most proper and superior education.”

Last year on September 25th, North Korea announced the package of educational reform measures, which emerged from the 6th Session of the 12th Supreme People’s Assembly. Children are now required to attend one year of kindergarten, five years of elementary school, three years of lower middle school and three years of advanced middle school.

However, defectors describe a different education environment, with economic burdens handed on to students. For example, students have to gather scrap metal or rabbit hides.