North Korean authorities have recently been tightening restrictions on private tutoring. Anyone caught being paid for private lessons reportedly faces legal sanctions, with no exceptions being granted.
“Here in Chongjin, there have been several recent cases of individuals being sent to labor camps for giving children private lessons at their homes,” a source in North Hamgyong province told Daily NK recently.
The tutoring crackdown is being led by the city police and Unified Command 82, with agents raiding homes without notice or warning to collect evidence.
The source said that on Sept. 18, an individual in his 30s was teaching guitar and vocal lessons at his home when he was caught by police. They had apparently been tipped off by a neighbor that the man was earning money through private tutoring at home instead of going to his regular job.
The man was charging 300 Chinese yuan a month for both guitar and vocal music lessons, which was barely half the price of other private tutors. In addition to the affordable price, he was said to be a talented teacher, which enabled him to retain a large number of pupils.
The majority of his pupils were in their final year of high school. They had been taking lessons with him with the goal of acquiring a skill before beginning their military service or entering the workforce.
“Charging tuition for private lessons at home is already a non-socialist act, but the crime was considered even more serious because the individual had been paying his workplace to excuse his absences as an ‘8.3 worker.’ The man is currently serving a six-month sentence at a hard labor camp,” the source said.
Growing frustration over crackdown approach
Managers at the tutor’s official workplace have been caught in the fallout of this incident, which revealed their complicity in the illegal 8.3 work arrangement.
The individual mentioned above is only one of several Chongjin residents in their 30s and 40s who have been caught working as private tutors.
“All of them were sentenced to hard labor for giving English and Chinese lessons at home. They’d all taken up tutoring after quitting their school jobs,” the source said.
“They’d chosen to become teachers instead of market vendors because they wanted a more stable lifestyle, but the reality was very different from their expectations. In the end, they resigned from their teaching jobs and took up tutoring, leading to their arrest and punishment.”
According to the source, some North Koreans disapprove of the government’s emphasis on punishing private tutors for non-socialist behavior instead of addressing the root cause—that is, the financial strain driving them to quit their teaching jobs and take up private tutoring.
“Even after these individuals serve their time, they’ll have to go straight back to private tutoring to make a living. Private lessons aren’t likely to go away until people’s economic troubles are resolved,” the source observed.
