Given it’s recent slew of politically hostile threats, much of the world’s attention has become focused on North Korea. As the country’s military actions come under close scrutiny, its new educational reform has provided no exception.
According to official reports, education reform has been a pivotal issue since Kim Jong-un assumed the supreme leadership role of North Korea. Last fall, the Supreme People’s Assembly approved an education bill which proposed to tack on one extra year of compulsory education while also dividing the secondary school curriculum into three two-year periods.
Educational experts from abroad remain unconvinced that the country has the needed resources to apply the series of changes by the next academic year.
“Since Kim Jong-un took power, North Korea has been focusing on education reforms, but the conditions for training teachers and procuring education tools and materials are not that easy given the (difficult) environment the country is facing domestically and externally,” said Yang Moo-jin, a political science professor at the University of North Korean Studies. “The country may take some time and face difficulties in the short run before the new system takes off.”
Teachers now face increasing pressure to implement these rapid changes and adopt never-done-before approaches to learning in order to put the country’s technological and scientific capacities better in line with the demands of the modern world.
Skepticism of the education bill is not internationally exclusive, with state media also raising some concerns. According to an article by Rodong Sinmun, a mainstream newspaper, current inadequacies in teacher training staff and resources will serve as the most critical roadblocks to the reform.
Kim Yong-chol, an official at Kim Hyung-jik University of Education, stated, “one of the pressing issues for successfully implementing the 12-year compulsory education system is teacher training.”
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