culture

Excellent young people of the DPRK can also be seen among teachers at schools in rural and mountainous areas and on islands.

In the recent one month alone, more than 100 graduates of universities of education and teachers training colleges volunteered to work as teachers at schools in rural and mountainous areas and on islands away from their dear native places and cities, true to the task of decisively reducing the gap in the educational level between urban and rural areas, which was set forth at the Ninth Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea.

Kim Jin Hyang, a teacher of Rothan Technical Senior Middle School in Poptong County, had volunteered to work at the school after graduating from Wonsan University of Education.

On her first day of attendance at the university, her father, who had been pensioned off for illness several years before, was deeply moved to stroke the school uniform and satchel provided to his only daughter by the state. He used to have her hang the uniform at the place where he could always see and asked her to repay the favour bestowed by the state even on his deathbed.

True to his request, Jin Hyang volunteered for the mountain village school and has devoted herself to education.

Kim Pom, a teacher of Hero Haegumgang Technical Senior Middle School in Kosong County, is also only daughter of her family.

At the time of her graduation from Wonsan Ri Su Dok Teachers Training College, she was a winner of the University Student Scientific Search Prize and the best student of the college, whom many institutions wanted to employ.

But as she grew up seeing her mother, who was a teacher, leaving for a rural village far away from the city to teach the students of a rural school, Kim Pom volunteered for the technical senior middle school in the southernmost part of the country with a determination to become a true educator like her mother.

Young people have volunteered for schools in such remote areas not only under the influence of their parents.

Kang Won Jin, a graduate of a teachers training college in Hoeryong City, settled with his wife at the Ryongchon Branch of Wollyong Technical Senior Middle School, about 30 kilometres away from the city seat.

“On my way home on leave during my military service, I happened to pass by Wollyong-ri and see the students of the Ryongchon Branch hurrying to the principal school some four kilometres away from the branch as their teacher failed to come there because of illness. I could not forget the sight of the students trotting hurriedly with satchels on their shoulders and sweating profusely. So I decided to work as a teacher of the branch school after graduating from the college,” said Kang.

Many of the graduates of middle schools for orphans have also become teachers at schools in rural and mountainous areas and on islands after graduating from universities and colleges.

Among them are Jo Un Jong, a graduate of Phyongsong University of Education, and Jang Yu Jong, a graduate of Phyongsong Teachers Training College, who volunteered for Huksu Technical Senior Middle School in Taehung County.

They grew up free from the sorrow of parentless children at Phyongsong Middle School for Orphans under the state’s concern. After graduating from the university and college last April, they became teachers at the school in the remote mountainous area and made up their mind to live there as educators all their lives.

“My birthday I greeted in early June this year will be etched forever in my memory. It was my first birthday since I became a teacher. It was hard to see flowers yet, since it snows in the region even in May. But to my surprise I was presented with an extraordinary bouquet that day. The young students gave me the bouquet of congratulations they painted with utmost care in watercolour. I was so touched that I hugged them tight with tears in my eyes. And I made up my mind to permanently settle in the mountain village and remain a teacher at the school,” said Jo Un Jong.

As such reliable young men and women devote themselves to education in the DPRK, the clear voices of children reading textbooks resound everywhere in the country, including remote mountain villages.