culture

Ahead of the new school year, all new students of schools at all levels throughout the country have been supplied with school uniforms, shoes and bags all at once.

New primary schoolboys have been supplied with trousers, breeches, sweaters, shirts, bags, shoes and belts, and similar schoolgirls with skirts, dresses, sweaters, tights, bags and shoes.

New junior middle school boys and girls have been provided with spring and autumn school uniforms and new male university or college students with spring and autumn and summer uniforms, belts, bags and shoes, and female students with similar uniforms, bags and shoes.

Looking with tears at her daughter’s uniform with a name tag showing the figures of her grade and class and her clothes size, a woman living in Kumnung-dong No. 2 of Hwasong District in Pyongyang said that though she and her husband have many children, they have never worried about their uniforms and school things.

School uniforms, shoes and bags have promptly been supplied to remote mountain and island villages, to say nothing of the capital city.

An official in Yodok County said that six rugged passes should be crossed to come to Yodok County, a mountainous area, adding that whenever they see new school uniforms, shoes and bags reach an out-of-the-way place of the county over the passes every year, all residents there are moved to tears with gratitude to the country for the benefits by it.

It takes a drive of several kilometres along a deep valley to reach the Puksan Branch of Maehyang Senior Middle School in Maengsan County from the county town. A van was ready to transport school uniforms for two new students of the branch school. On the afternoon of March 27, the van arrived at the branch school, welcomed by its teachers and students and villagers and the uniforms and a variety of necessaries were given to the two students.

The mother of Ri Mok Ran, one of the two students, said that she felt a lump in her throat, tears welling up in her eyes, the moment she saw the school uniforms hanging on clothes-racks without a wrinkle after the door of the van was opened, adding that there would be no other country where a van for the delivery of school uniforms for merely two students come to a branch school of a remote mountain village.

Ro Hyon Jong, the father of the other student, said that he would repay the affection and benevolence of the socialist country with higher grain production, exclaiming, “Thank you very much, the respected General Secretary Kim Jong Un.” 

The moving scene of them shedding tears of joy and gratitude, hardening their determination to repay the benevolence of the state is the fruition of the eternal state policy of the DPRK which set the supply of uniforms to students as the top priority undertaking which should be done unconditionally.

At the historic Eleventh Plenary Meeting of the Eighth Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea, the respected General Secretary noted that the state should take full responsibility for the supply of school things, supplies and equipment and steadfastly follow the direction of providing the educators and students with the best working and studying conditions.