Pyongyang No. 1 Senior-middle School, the Most Elite Training Institute in North Korea

[imText1]As part of the special education policy for the talented, the North Korean government established Pyongyang No. 1 Senior-middle School in 1984, where education courses correspond with the national curriculum for high schools in South Korea. By 1985, the North Korean regime had established a No.1 Senior-middle School for each provincial government and started a full-scale special education program for the gifted.

The competition to get into No. 1 Senior-middle Schools is fierce because only graduates from these schools can get into the best universities. The No. 1 Senior-middle Schools are different from the ordinary schools in terms of teaching materials and the quality of their teachers. However, there is a huge difference even among No.1 Senior-middle Schools. The best one is Pyongyang No.1 Senior-middle School.

Located in the Shinwon-dong of Bontongkang-district, Pyongyang, Pyongyang No. 1 Senior-middle School has a total floor space of 28,000 square meters, a four-story building for primary school, a ten-story building for Senior-middle school, dormitories, a cafeteria, and other accessory buildings. It is surely the best school in North Korea.

The entrance quota is approximately one thousand students with around 300 selected from the countryside. The dorms for students from the provinces are better facilities than the dorms of Kim Il Sung University.

The predecessor of the present Pyongyang No.1 Senior-middle School was “Pyongyang Namsan Advanced Middle School,” where Kim Joing Il attended between 1957 and 1960. In those days, the school only received as its students the children of army generals, anti-Japanese fighters, the cadres of the central party, cabinet members, and renowned artists or intellectuals. It was “the school for nobility.”

As part of Kim Jong Il’s policy for special education, the school changed its name to Pyongyang No.1 Senior-middle School. It now boasts that it provides the best education and experimental facilities and the most prominent teachers. The school buildings, which cost 5.8 billion U.S. dollars to construct, are very modern. All furnishings and equipment were imported from Japan including desks and chairs, interior decorations, laboratory tools, reagents, musical instruments, and sports equipment.

Also referred to as Kim Jong Il’s alma mater, the school has a pool of teachers, most of whom are graduates from Kim Il Song National University, Kimchaek University of Technology, and Kim Hyong Jik College of Education. It also has twenty (or so) up-to-date laboratories, an excellent specimen room, and the scanning electron microscope, which is not available even at Kim Il Sung University.

The “Kim Jong Il Memorial Hall,” which exhibits materials from Kim Jong Il’s school days and is used for idolization education about Kim Jong Il, is located in a 10-story facility and its accessory building. Moreover, the school has an auditorium with the seating capacity of up to 500, libraries, gyms, swimming pools, dispensaries and a barbershop.

Inside the 10-story building are the principal’s office, the room for party secretaries, teachers’ rooms, classrooms, laboratories, audio-visual classroom for foreign language studies, “Kim Il Sung Revolutionary History Study” room, modern computer labs, and a studio fully equipped with Japanese electronic musical instruments.

Those students originally from Pyongyang are mostly the children of the central Party or central ministry members, anti-Japan fighters, army generals, and rich Pyongyang citizens including some Korean-Japanese. Unlike the children of the upper classes, students from the countryside are selected not the basis of their family background but by their talents. Most of these students are transfer students from provincial Senior-middle Schools. Therefore, there is a stark contrast between less qualified students from affluent Pyongyang families and highly talented transfer students from not–so- rich families.

Students from provinces display real talents.

In fact, it is these transfer students from provincial No.1 Senior-middle Schools who really raise the prestige of Pyongyang No.1 Senior-middle School. Most of the time, it is these students who win awards at the International Math Olympic or computer tournaments, or achieve academic success later in college.

Apparently, Pyongyang No.1 Senior-middle School serves two purposes. It is both an aristocratic school for the upper-class children and a special school which offers education for the gifted and produces the most brilliant men in North Korea.

As the most elite school, Pyongyang No. 1 Senior-middle School values not only science and technology education but also art and physical education. This is what makes Pyongyang No.1 Senior-middle School different from other provincial No.1 senior-middle Schools. The physical education program emphasizes activities such as basketball, swimming, and apparatus gymnastics (horizontal bar, parallel bars), and offers lessons in boxing, soccer, and table-tennis. It is mandatory to take swimming lessons two times per week. In addition, the music education program offers classes such as voice, composition and electronic piano lessons. There are also school bands.

As a result of the broad-based curricula of Pyongyang No.1 Senior-middle School, the graduates of this school are taller on the average than their counterparts from No.1 provincial Senior-middle Schools, and display better performance in physical and music education. The self-confident students of Pyongyang No.1 Senior-middle School are also known for their good manners in dating.

On the streets of Pyongyang, people can easily spot schoolboys wearing the emblem of Pyongyang No.1 Senior-middle School flirting with school girls from the No.1 or No.2 Geumsung Special Art Schools.

Thanks to Kim Jong Il’s favoritism, Pyongyang No.1 Senior-middle School enjoys many kinds of privileges. In 1997, the students received exemption from military service. Furthermore, they have a great advantage over the students of No.1 provincial Senior-middle Schools in obtaining nomination letters needed to get into top universities,

When it comes to entering into Kim Il Sung University, each No. 1 provincial Senior-middle School is allowed to send 5~9 nomination letters, whereas Pyongyang No.1 Senior-middle School is permitted to send 80~90. Similarly, the provincial schools can write no more than 1~2 nomination letters for Pyongyang Medical School, whereas Pyongyang No.1 Senior-middle School can write 20~30 nomination letters. Almost all students who graduate from Pyongyang No.1 Senior-middle School go to top universities. Those graduates who are poor in their academic performance go to Pyongsung College of Science.

The graduates from Pyongyang No.1 Senior-middle School also enjoy special treatment at their universities. They are more likely to be selected as student leaders and to receive attention from professors. As Kim Jong Il’s alma mater, Pyongyang Senior-middle School No.1 draws national attention and support. It is surely the most elite school in North Korea.