North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has promoted educational activities as the “No. 1 affair of state” and emphasized state support, but the burden of supporting schools still falls entirely on students and parents, Daily NK has learned.
“Schools are currently undertaking widespread renovation efforts as they prepare for the new semester, but the financial burden falls completely on students and parents,” a source in North Pyongan province said recently.
According to the source, North Korean schools cannot properly maintain even basic educational environments due to chronic funding shortages. Despite broken hallways, walls, stairs, classroom floors and windows, schools lack the resources to make repairs independently.
An elementary school in Tongnim county recently required students to bring sand or cement to renovate the school before the new semester begins in April. Students were tasked with providing materials to fix deteriorated floors that emit dust.
A middle school in the same county collected money from each class to purchase footballs and basketballs for physical education. Having no sports equipment of its own, the school had previously conducted gym classes using balls brought by students, the source said.
North Korea designates March as a “month to support schools,” during which it calls on provinces, cities, counties and support groups to actively provide educational supplies, equipment and materials needed for school modernization. However, this is merely for show—in reality, students and their parents bear all responsibility for school support efforts, the source said.
“Even teachers scoff when someone mentions ‘school support month,’” the source said. “They talk about modernizing schools through educational support efforts, but it’s empty rhetoric. Even facility repair costs that should be covered by schools or support groups are passed on to students and parents.”
At the Enlarged Meeting of the Eleventh Plenary Meeting of the Eighth Central Committee held last year, the “enforcement of a series of measures for strengthening the educational foundations of the country” was a key agenda item.
Kim Jong Un, who presided over the meeting, emphasized the need to “push forward the modernization of schools, which claims a lion’s share in strengthening the educational foundations, as a state undertaking, and set an ambitious goal to renovate all schools across the country within the next decade and push it forward persistently so as to carry it through to the end without fail.”
Kim stated, “We should definitely take the direction of supplying school fittings, supplies and equipment and providing the educators and students with the best working and studying conditions on the full responsibility of the state.” Yet schools continue to rely completely on students and parents for support.
“With families forced to supply even basic gym equipment, any real improvement in educational conditions is impossible without genuine government funding,” the source concluded.
March 14, 2025 at 05:04AM
by DailyNK(North Korean Media)