North Korea has launched a harsh crackdown on the recent boom in private tutoring. The official reason: tutoring is “non-socialist behavior.” But parents have expressed anger, arguing authorities must “normalize” public education if they want to bring tutoring under control.
According to a Daily NK source in North Pyongan province, the provincial party committee warned late last month that “tutoring, one form of educational fervor seen in capitalist societies, has infiltrated our society,” and issued a special order to state security and police to launch a “mop-up operation” against this “non-socialist behavior.”
The provincial party committee said “non-socialist behavior, such as tutoring, must not be allowed to set foot in our society,” and instructed schools to meet with parents and advise them against hiring tutors. “If they fail to heed this advice, neighborhood watch units should be mobilized to report families that hire tutors,” it ordered.
In major cities like Sinuiju and even rural areas like Sakju and Pihyun counties, hiring tutors has become trendy among parents.
“There’s been a tutoring boom because schools can’t properly educate students,” the source said. “So parents hire tutors to give their children a better future.”
The provincial party committee launched its “mop-up operation” because, unlike the past when only wealthy families hired tutors, tutoring has recently become universal—even ordinary families with little money are hiring them.
Moreover, most schools focus more on mobilizing students for state labor than raising educational achievement. In practice, students spend more time on outside tasks than studying in classrooms.
Labor trumps learning in North Korean schools
“Students are mobilized as labor for the state from third or fourth grade in elementary school,” the source said. “They only study a bit in the morning. In the afternoon, they perform patriotic labor like road construction or helping on farms with basins, shovels, or hoes in hand.”
“Many young students who’ve performed patriotic labor until late afternoon sleep at their desks the next morning because they’re tired,” the source said. “With this being the case, how can you not hire a tutor?”
Some elementary school students can’t read or write correctly when they graduate, so parents must hire tutors to teach even basic lessons nowadays, the source said. Regardless of financial status, parents increasingly agree their children “must at least learn to read to go to the army and enter society.”
The provincial party committee’s crackdown order has left parents bewildered.
“It’s absurd that the party doesn’t care about providing proper education in schools and simply bans tutoring,” parents say. “If you just ban tutoring, nobody will take responsibility for our children’s basic education.”
“Given that the provincial party committee said it would crack down hard on hiring private tutors, tutors will be less active for now,” the source said. “However, because parents are determined to make their children learn no matter what, authorities won’t be able to root out tutoring.”
January 12, 2026 at 06:42PM
by DailyNK(North Korean Media)