Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

Popular Educational System of DPRK

Korean Central News Agency of DPRK via Korea News Service (KNS)

   Pyongyang, September 5 (KCNA) -- Twentynine years have elapsed since President Kim Il Sung made public "Theses on Socialist Education" on Sept. 5, 1977. On the occasion, the Korean people are looking back on the imperishable exploits performed by the President in the establishment of the most popular educational system and in its consolidation and development.
    The President, who regarded education as a key problem decisive of the rise or fall of the country, saw to it to give preference to founding Kim Il Sung University in the early days of the construction of a new country and to lay a solid base for training native cadres with the university as its matrix.
    He let the Provisional People's Committee of North Korea adopt a decision "Regulations on the School Education System of North Korea and the Step to Enforce Them" in December Juche 35 (1946), thus opening a broad avenue for education.
    Even during the hard-fought Korean war decisive to the destiny of the country he directed deep attention to the evacuation of all the universities to safe places so that they would continue educational work. And he took epochal measures unprecedented in history to recall all the teachers, scholars and students from the front and to set up the study-while-working system.
    Under the guidance of the President, a decision on carrying the universal compulsory primary education into effect from 1956 was adopted and a law on enforcing the universal compulsory secondary education from Nov. 1, 1958 was promulgated.
    Free education started in primary schools in 1956 and in middle schools in 1958 and tuition system was abolished in all the schools up to universities and postgraduate courses on April 1, 1959.
    The President's theses marked a new turning point in the development of education.
    Thanks to the popular educational policy of the President the educational system of the country has been constantly consolidated and developed, the overall education reached incomparably high standard and a compulsory education of high level is being enforced in the country.