The wave of English education reaching North Korea

Posted on : 2015-05-01 16:39 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
North Korean kids are studying English in ways that diverge from methods in the South, with praise of the North’s leadership

Are young North Koreans about to face the same stress over learning English as their South Korean counterparts?

The Korean Peninsula is in the middle of an English education wave - and now it appears the North is no exception.

“Thank you, the Great Leader Marshal Kim Jong Il!” reads one of the entries in a North Korean middle school English textbook. It’s a very different sort of example from the ones found in South Korean texts, with their everyday dialogues between “Young-soo” and “Jane.”

This, says Korea Institute of Curriculum & Evaluation (KICE) researcher Kim Jin-sook, explains the “continued need for more specialized and constructive discussions on unified education in light of political currents emphasizing unification.” Kim’s remarks came on Apr. 30 as part of a presentation at a seminar organized by KICE on “Ideas for a Post-Unification Integrated North and South Korean Educational Curriculum.”

The arrival of Kim Jong-un as North Korean leader has led to particularly large changes, including an increase from eleven to twelve years of compulsory primary and secondary schooling and more education on English and computers. A KICE report on “directions and tasks for integrated post-unification educational curriculum development” noted that urban students at North Korea’s early middle schools (equivalent to South Korean middle schools) and middle schools (high schools) were given a total of 628 hours of English education over six years even before the curriculum change. The first year of middle school in particular includes 175 hours of English instruction.

But the goals of English study in North Korea are quite different from the South’s.

“Students are well aware that when they learn other languages, they’re doing it for the sake of the ‘Choson [Korea] revolution,’” Kim explained. “They have to study and study to learn the fundamentals of English.”

These are the aims of North Korean-style English education. Indeed, while textbook content goes through the traditional steps of “introduction,” “development,” and “transition,” the conclusion is always the same: Kim Il-sung and his son Kim Jong-il.

The following passages were taken from the units in an English textbook for sixth year middle school students, North Korea’s equivalent to high school seniors. (Data are taken from KICE materials.)

Unit 1: Our School

“Learning about good school facilities under the attention and care of Kim Il-sung and the need to be grateful to Kim Il-sung.”

  

Unit 2: Let’s Go Together

“Conversations about friends and daily life, followed by dedication of home-grown flowers at Minkyongdae [the birthplace of Kim Il-sung].”

Unit 3: The Olympic Games

“Discussing the origins and history of the Olympics; Olympic athletes do their sport for the joy and satisfaction of Kim Jong-il.”

“In terms of content, the English textbooks for first-year middle school students don’t have a lot of material overtly reflecting North Korea’s politics, apart from some praise for Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il in the first part,” explained Kim. “By the time you get to the later years, though, there’s a serious discrepancy between the surface titles of the units and the actual material.”

In addition to English, a trend of increased classroom hours and heavier content toward the later years can be seen in political education, which starts at the primary school stages. The emphasis on science education compared to the South Korean curriculum is particularly noticeable.

“In North Korea, science classes make up the biggest part of the curriculum, although the percentage has gone up in South Korea with an increase in the number of required science course from ten in the 2009 revised curriculum to twelve in the 2015 curriculum,” Kim observed.

Apart from the political education, the North Korean textbooks are not much different from South Korean ones in their organization, the researchers said. But the conditions are quite different.

“Total classroom hours in North Korea are only about 49-58% what they are in South Korea,” said Song Du-rok, a teacher at Seoul’s Sehyun High School who attended the seminar.

An accurate understanding of the different conditions is the first step in heading off chaos once integration is under way. But many say South Korea still lacks sufficient information about North Korean education to set up a framework for integrated teaching.

“The first thing we need is to gather materials on all aspects of the North Korean education system,” said Hwang In-pyo, a professor at Chuncheon National University of Education.

“The materials we have on North Korean education in South Korea today are not only inadequate but also inconsistently maintained,” Hwang added.

Jeonju National University of Education professor Park Seung-bae said the materials presented by the research “give the strong impression of trying to align North Korea with our perspective.”

“What we ought to do is find more North Korean documents on the educational curriculum and develop integrated North-South Korean curriculum materials that use the same terms they do in North Korea,” Park suggested.

By Eum Ji-won, staff reporter

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]

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