[imText1]The university admission process is so difficult that you have to obtain recommendations and pass the national exam. The departments and majors are determined at the university. Classes are divided like military divisions; the university as a solidarity, departments as platoons, and majors as companies. Colleges or local universities with a small number of students usually call the entire class of the year a company, and departments and majors as platoons.
After making divisions, the campus life then really begins. You have to enter the university by 8 in the morning, and for thirty minutes go though forced walking and inspection. During the inspection, military trainers inspect how a student is dressed, they check students’ haircuts, and determine whether or not they are prepared to enter the classrooms.
After the inspection comes the forced walking. The divided groups walk the school’s sports field and practice marching. They do this walking exercise every Monday morning.
The first class starts at 8:30 am, and a class is 90 minutes long. After three classes in the morning, lunch time begins at 1:30 pm. Those living in the dorms receive meal tickets issued by the university administration office, and walk to the cafeteria singing in class groups. Usually they sing the song, “We will win together.” Those students who commute bring lunch from home and eat in the classroom with other students.
In the afternoon, there are two classes. All classes come to an end at 5:30 pm. When school is out, the student leader (or class leader) criticizes student behavior in the classrooms for ten minutes and the students go to their extracurricular activities.
There is also a “student patrol” who guides and controls the students. They are upperclassmen, and mainly keep control of the love affairs between the male and female students. It is said that many students are expelled for violating this rule.
This is due to Kim Il Sung’s speech on the 5th Conference of the Socialist Worker’s Youth Alliance in which he said, “When the youth marry early, they become devoted to family and lose the thought of revolution and become lazy and weak in everything they do.” After the speech it became a law that university students do not get married, let alone date.
University Students Marriage Prohibited by Kim Il Sung’s Teachings
It is impossible to control love between a man and a woman. Most of the students fall in love secretly, promise marriage in secret, act as if they do not know each other during the college years and get married as soon as they graduate, of course, by obtaining permission.
Political organizations are also formed in the universities. Organizations such as the University Worker’s Party Committee, University Socialist Worker’s Youth Alliance, University Chosun Employment General Alliance, and University Democratic Women’s Alliance are all great examples. Students join a university party committee or socialist committee as extracurricular activities.
University students in North Korea spend most of their extracurricular time in military training, labor involvement, and conferences, gatherings, and meetings for various kinds of political propaganda and agitation movement.
Extracurricular activities for university students in North Korea are an important part of life. Under the principle of “unity of theory and practice,” students are to “volunteer” in the areas where the state needs human labor–exemplifying obligatory labor.
The areas where students contribute obligatory labor are in assistance to farms, economic, and construction areas. Assistance to farms includes planting, pulling weeds, irrigation, and harvesting. Economic and construction areas include city construction, power plant construction, railroad construction, school construction, machine building, and mining.
Obligatory labor must be done approximately 12 to 14 weeks annually. Anyone who complains receives harsh criticisms for “expressing anti-movement ideology.” If the person still does not participate in the labor “voluntarily” even after such criticisms, he is punished and in extreme cases is expelled from the party. Students work because they do not want to risk their own lives. They shout out propagandistic slogans because they are being watched.
