Immortal Exploits of President Kim Il Sung who Provided a Model of Juche-Oriented and Popular Socialist Education

President Kim Il Sung was an outstanding leader who paid deep attention to the education of the rising generations all his life and provided a model of Juche-oriented and popular socialist education for the first time in history.

The respected Comrade Kim Jong Un said:

"The 20th century was, both in name and in reality, Comrade Kim Il Sung's century, resplendent with his imperishable exploits and the personality of a great man."

What is important is that the President provided a Juche-oriented socialist educational programme by setting forth the outstanding and original idea and theory of education that clearly illuminates the way of education.

From the early days of the revolution, he regarded education as one of the fundamental issues decisive of the victory of the revolution and the future of the nation and set forth an original ideology and theory that clearly illuminates the way of education.

He set forth the Juche-oriented idea and theory of socialist education in several works including "On Some Tasks in the Sphere of Education", "On Making Sufficient Preparations for the Enforcement of Universal Compulsory Primary Education", "On Improving and Strengthening the Work of General Education" and "Theses on Socialist Education".

For the first time in history, he scientifically formulated the essence and purpose of socialist education and the basic principles of socialist pedagogy, systematized the contents and methods of socialist education in a comprehensive way and perfectly clarified the methodological requirements.

He defined the essence of socialist education as the work of training people into independent and creative social beings and set it as the objective of socialist education to train people into revolutionary talents of Juche type with independence, creativity and consciousness.

The basic principle of socialist pedagogy clarified by President Kim Il Sung is to make people revolutionized, working-class and communist. In other words, it is to equip people with the communist revolutionary idea and, on this basis, acquire deep scientific knowledge and strong body.

In order to conduct socialist education satisfactorily, the President said that the Party spirit and working-class spirit should be embodied in education, Juche should be established, education should be combined with revolutionary practice and the socialist state should organize and conduct education in a responsible manner.

He defined political and ideological education, science and technology education and physical education as the contents of socialist education and clarified the basic method of socialist education to intensify education, theoretical education and practical education, the combination of education and productive labour, organizational life and socio-political activities and the simultaneous development of pre-school education, school education and adult education.

He also clarified the essential features and advantages of the socialist education system, theoretical and practical problems arising in developing the socialist education system, tasks and ways for enhancing the duty and role of educational institutions, providing Party guidance, state and social assistance to education.

As he advanced the Juche-oriented idea and theory on education, a broad avenue for successfully conducting education was opened up and an immortal educational programme to be held fast to in socialist education was provided.

What is important in the immortal feats of President Kim Il Sung who set the education of the rising generations as the most important state affair in the whole period of the revolution and construction and wisely led it to create and develop the Juche-oriented and popular socialist education system.

The socialist educational system in our country is the most advantageous one in the world where everyone can study to his heart's content throughout his life.

The most advantageous educational system envied by the world people is a brilliant fruition of the wise leadership and love of the President.

In the early days of the arduous anti-Japanese revolutionary struggle, the President set up Children's Corps schools in guerrilla zones and enforced compulsory education, and later in the "Ten-Point Programme of the Association for the Restoration of the Fatherland" he stressed the need to introduce compulsory free education.

Even in such a tense period of carrying out the difficult and gigantic tasks of building the party, state and army after Korea's liberation, the President clarified the need to establish a new people-oriented democratic educational system in his several works and wisely organized and led the struggle for its realization.

In his "20-Point Platform" and other works, the President clarified the need to enforce compulsory primary education system and saw to it that preparations for implementing universal compulsory primary education system such as the construction of schools, production and supply of textbooks and teaching aids and the issue of teachers were stepped up.

On the basis of this success, the President made sure that the Law on Enforcing universal compulsory primary education was promulgated at the Fourth Session of the Supreme People's Assembly of the DPR Korea on September 10, Juche 38 (1949).

The President saw to it that the universal compulsory primary education system was fully enforced from August 1, Juche 45 (1956) despite the difficulties of leading the postwar reconstruction work and that the work of enforcing the universal compulsory secondary education system was vigorously pushed ahead after that.

The President saw to it that the universal compulsory secondary education system was enforced at the Third Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea on April 23, Juche 45 (1956).

He made sure that state funds were diverted to the school construction and that agricultural cooperatives (then) conducted a campaign for accumulating school funds in order to accelerate the construction of rural middle schools and that many colleges and colleges for training teachers were built.

Thanks to the wise leadership of President Kim Il Sung, the universal compulsory secondary education system was fully enforced in the DPR Korea in only two years since the universal compulsory primary education system was enforced and free education was enforced until the middle school stage in Juche 47(1958).

Later, President Kim Il Sung declared that all kinds of tuition would be completely abolished in all educational institutions in our country from April 1, Juche 48 (1959) through the Cabinet Decision No. 18 "On Abolishing Student's Tuition Overall" on March 2, Juche 48 (1959).

At the historic Fourth Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea, President Kim Il Sung saw to it that universal nine-year compulsory technical education was enforced on the basis of the success of compulsory secondary education.

Compulsory 9-year technical education is not only a long and high level of education compared with the previous system of compulsory primary and secondary education but also a high level of compulsory education which requires a close combination of general education, basic technical education and education and productive labour.

With the firm stand that the work for the rising generations can never be postponed even if the situation of the country is tense and the state is burdensome, the President made sure that the struggle for the enforcement of universal nine-year compulsory technical education was vigorously pushed ahead.

Thanks to the wise leadership of the President, all conditions were provided for the enforcement of universal nine-year compulsory technical education in our country and the Sixth Plenary Meeting of the Third Supreme People's Assembly of the DPRK adopted the "Law on enforcing universal nine-year compulsory technical education" on November 24, Juche 55(1966).

At important meetings of the Party and the state including the Fourth Plenary Meeting of the Fifth Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea held on July 6, Juche 61 (1972), he indicated the tasks and ways for successfully enforcing the universal 11-year compulsory education consisting of one-year pre-school compulsory education and ten-year compulsory education.

He clearly indicated the tasks and ways for building schools, training teachers and producing school supplies necessary for the 11-year compulsory education and took several Party and state measures.

As a result, the universal 11-year compulsory education system has been fully enforced in our country since Juche 64(1975).

The full implementation of the universal 11-year compulsory education was a brilliant victory of the Juche-oriented idea of education and a historic event which brought about a radical advance in further consolidating and developing the socialist educational system of the DPR Korea.

He set forth the programme for intellectualizing the whole society as required by the rapidly developing reality and saw to it that many working-while-learning colleges and vocational schools were set up and run well and intensified correspondence education.

In the last period of his life he always paid deep attention to the development of education and visited schools and universities to solve all problems arising in education.

Thanks to the wise leadership of the President, the most advantageous socialist educational system was created in our country in which all people can study to their hearts' content without paying a penny for a lifetime and a wide avenue for intellectualizing the whole society was opened.

Indeed, the President was the peerlessly great man and benevolent father of the people who provided a model of Juche-oriented and popular socialist education for the first time in human history.