Great Programme for Socialist Education

September 5 this year marks the 35th anniversary of publication of the Theses on Socialist Education by President Kim Il Sung, the founding father of socialist Korea.

The theses give scientific answers to all the theoretical and practical problems arising in socialist education, ranging from the fundamentals of socialist pedagogy to the contents and methods of socialist education and the socialist education system, to the mission and role of educational institutions, and guidance over and assistance to the educational work.

Thanks to the theses, Korea’s educational system has developed into a more advantageous and advanced one.

All the Koreans, irrespective of age, are enjoying the right to learning.

First of all, regular educational system for the rising generation is on a high standard.

Children enjoy universal 11-year compulsory free education.one year pre-school education, four-year primary education and six-year secondary education.

When they are finishing the compulsory education, the students have acquired complete secondary general knowledge and at least one technical skill.

This can be called a high standard in terms of the quality of education and the period of education. The universal 11-year compulsory education not only provides a sure guarantee for enhancing the general cultural and technical standard of society and achieving sustainable social and economic progress; it also lays the groundwork for producing talented persons.

In recent few years, students of the DPRK are winning a series of victories in Maths Olympiads and other world academic contests and international art contests. This makes it possible to get an easy understanding of the level of education in Korea.

Great efforts are channelled into the education for talented students under the universal 11-year compulsory education system. Gifted students are selected and taught under a long-range program at the secondary schools No. 1 set up in the capital and provincial seats.

A well-regulated network of higher education has been set up as well. Students are studying gratis and receiving scholarship at universities and colleges which are fully equipped for education, experiments and practical training.

The study-while-you-work system established in the country embraces the networks of correspondence courses and evening schools run by universities, and the colleges run by factories, farms and fishing stations. It gives a basic scientific and technological education and specialized education to the working people. That it does not hinder the ongoing economic work,

but is closely combined with it, is its characteristics and superiority.

Already in the 1980s, adults in Korea reached the level of secondary school graduate, and now there are over millions of intellectuals.

The human resources that have been trained in this way constitute the reliable foundation for building a thriving nation in Korea today.

Korea succeeded in launching artificial satellites, the quintessence of the latest science and technology and aggregate of national economic potentials, by the efforts of its scientists and technicians.

Young scientists and technicians have seized the key to the CNC technology, one of he cutting-edge technologies, and introduce it into several economic sectors.

They established the Juche iron production system that uses no coke and scrap iron, developed and applied the DCS system, a high level in automatic control in chemical industry, in their own way and developed a computer operating system of their own.

Amazing achievements continue to be made in the sectors of nuclear, information, nano and bioengineering technologies by the Korean scientists and technicians.

All the successes achieved in building a thriving nation by holding the policy of attaching foremost importance to science and technology as the strategic line are a demonstration of the superiority of Korea’s educational system and the brilliant fruition brought about by the theses.