In time for the new school semester, which
began earlier this month in North Korea, parents of elementary, middle, and
high school students have been burdened with various fees collected by the state under the pretext of modernizing school facilities.
“With the state expansion of mandatory
education to 12 years [from the previous 11], middle and high schools have been
installing new educational facilities,” a source from
South Pyongan Province said. “Authorities are forcing
students [and their parents] to shoulder the financial costs for computers,
various equipment for experiments, and other new facilities.”
This closely follows a piece from earlier in April published in the Rodong
Sinmun, North Korea’s Party-run publication. covering Kim Jong Eun’s emphasis on increasing national
investment in and modernization of the education industry.
“Students and their parents are struggling
because of new costs added to their list from installing artificial turf on the
school fields,” he said. “Each of the 900 students in the province have to pay 20,000 KPW
[2.50 USD] each time in three installments, so every student ends up paying
60,000 KPW [7.50 USD].” That sum is an exorbitant amount
for most North Koreans, when 1kg of rice at the markets is usually 5,000 KPW
[0.63 USD].
Funding for school facilities is largely
the responsibility of state enterprises, but as the source put it, “none
of them even have the money to run properly anymore.” Because the
mandate to modernize school facilities comes from the Party, schools have
“no choice” but to implement it by shifting the financial burden onto
the students–and by extension–their parents. The authorities use
the money to buy supplies, of which most–if not all–are manufactured in China.
“The Marshal (Kim Jong Eun) emphasizes that
the revolution of education can be achieved by installment of modern
educational facilities, giving way to the general enhancement of student
intelligence. But that’s all the Party says; it has
no solutions to tackle the problem, so in the end, everything is up to the students,” the source said. “Every
time orders to modernize school facilities are issued, the academic performance
of students actually declines,” he said, explaining that the pressure
placed on students by these schools to pay results in a terrible–often unbearable– amount of
stress.
“If parents do not send their children to
school as a means of protest, they become targets during self-criticism and
criticism sessions,” he said, adding that this would involve standing in front of the group during such sessions and enduring a torrent of disparaging comments by others in the community.
This has prompted many residents to express desire for the implementation of a system where parents pay monthly school dues. “Paying monthly fees seems like a much better practice than the current
situation where parents are paying large sums of money for school equipment. That would be a much more reasonable method for both teachers and students,”
the source said, reflecting the sentiments on the ground.
“During Japan’s
colonial rule, those who could not pay monthly school fees had to quit school.
But now, people don’t even have that option,” he concluded.
