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The study-while-you-work system is in operation throughout the DPRK.

Born with the establishment of the first factory college on July 15 1951, when the fierce Fatherland Liberation War was at its height, the educational system has fully demonstrated its vitality in socialist construction for the past 75 years.

In the days of the grim war, President Kim Il Sung saw to it that the factory college was founded for the first time in the country, and after confirming its advantages in practice, he ensured that similar colleges were established at major factories across the country from September 1960.

In several works including the historic letter “On Further Developing Educational Work” sent to the participants in the ninth national conference of educational workers held in July 1984, Chairman Kim Jong Il said it is important to develop the study-while-you-work system in order to intellectualize the whole society and indicated the ways to this end.

As a result, the number of factory colleges increased from 30 in the 1960s to well over a hundred in the new century, producing many labour innovators, scientists and technicians.

Today, the study-while-you-work system has been further strengthened and developed.

In June 2013 the respected General Secretary Kim Jong Un gave instructions on equipping all the people with modern science and technology under the slogan of ensuring that they are well-versed in science and technology. In his report to the Seventh Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea on the work of its Central Committee, the General Secretary stressed the need to increase the number of study-while-you-work colleges, raise their educational level and, in particular, further develop the online education system and thus give full play to its advantages.

Accordingly, efforts have been made to set up new courses and main and other subjects and expand the enrolment in keeping with the mission of factory colleges and the modern trend of educational development and to improve the effectiveness of professional education by strengthening the ranks of teachers and providing conditions for experiments and practical training, and the farm colleges were reorganized into agricultural technical schools.

The work to put the teaching contents on a practical, comprehensive and modern basis has been conducted and, in the course of it, many teachers and students at factory colleges across the country grew up to be holders of academic degrees and titles, October 8 model instructors, polyglots and hard-core members playing a key role in developing their units.

In addition, the Sci-Tech Complex was built as a great temple for all-people learning and a hub of disseminating latest science and technology, and the sci-tech learning bases were established in provinces, cities and counties and at institutions and industrial establishments throughout the country, thus preparing the working people to be talents well versed in their sectors and fields and possessed of comprehensive knowledge.

Working people grow up to be talented technicians and specialists and thus become innovators and inventors in production and construction, and the number of graduate workshops and workteams in factories, enterprises and farms is on the increase continuously. This proves the vitality of the study-while-you-work system.