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DPRK Boasts of Excellent Education System

Korean Central News Agency of DPRK

    Pyongyang, March 24 (KCNA) -- Fifty-five years have passed since the campaign against illiteracy was wound up successfully in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Just after the liberation of the country in 1945, the situation of education was very poor in the country, affected by the Japanese imperialists' policy of obliterating culture of the colonial nation.
    Eighty percent of the population were illiterates, some 2.3 million of them being adults. There was no university in the country at that time.
    Every year more than 400,000 children of school age could not go to school.
    It was an urgent issue in liberated Korea to abolish the Japanese imperialists' educational policy for colonial slavery and establish a popular and democratic education system.
    Under the wise leadership of President Kim Il Sung, the Workers' Party of Korea and the DPRK Government successfully carried out the tasks for democratic education in only one year and launched a nationwide campaign to wipe out illiteracy in the country until March Juche 38 (1949).
    After Kim Il Sung University, the first university of the country, made its appearance in October 1946, some ten universities and scores of technical colleges were set up in two or three years.
    The universal compulsory primary education system was introduced in the country in 1956, the universal compulsory secondary education system in 1958, the universal free education system in 1959 and the universal compulsory eleven-year education system in 1975.
    The school education system ranging from preschool education to high education, and the social education system have been established on a regular basis in the country.
    Millions of pupils and students are studying at schools at all levels built all over the country, free of charge.
    A large number of students are preparing themselves in political, ideological, scientific and technical aspects at hundreds of universities every year.