[Walking with reporter Ahn Jeong-sik and Pyongyang] Even in North Korea, "a well-living child is good at studying"

There are many people who are skeptical about unification, asking,'Will it really become unification?'

In fact, it is difficult to speak positively about the prospect of unification at this point.

However, if you look at past history, the historical upheaval came from a state that people didn't expect even just before that.

Here is a question like this.

Whether reunification is relatively close or long after, can we cope without panic if it comes to reality?

Are we preparing for unification?

How much do we know about the reality of North Korea, which has been divided for more than 70 years and has been very different from ours, the task of inter-Korean integration, and the issues that must be encountered in the unification process?

In the future, through the series'Walking with Reporter Ahn Jung-sik and Pyongyang', I will try to examine the reality of North Korea and the issues related to unification one by one.

The reason for this work is that, as a reporter specializing in North Korea, I have been interested in the issue of North Korea and unification for more than 15 years, but there are various data and concerns that have been collected in the process of publishing related books over the last 4 years.

It may be a topic that you may not be interested in right now, but one day we will try to stack bricks one by one to prepare for the future to come.

Korea's. The first topic we want to look at is college entrance exams in North Korea.

On the 3rd, the university entrance exam was taken nationwide.

University entrance exams are an important concern in South Korean society, where education is enthusiastic, and the SAT is one of the most important events in the family for parents of test takers.

Even in North Korea, parents’ enthusiasm for education is great.

This is because we believe that education is directly connected to the future of our children.

The interest of North Korean parents to send them to prestigious universities in North Korea such as Kim Il-Sung University is great.

The competition for college entrance exams among North Korean parents begins at the stage of their children entering middle school.

There is a North Korean gifted education institution called No. 1 Middle School, and it is a place that selects and educates excellent students with the concept of a special high school in South Korea.

The first junior high school is a six-year program that covers elementary junior high school (South Korean junior high school) and advanced junior high school (South Korean high school) courses, and it has been expanded to sub-administrative units of North Korea, such as cities, counties, and districts. There are only dogs.

The first middle school in each province selects excellent students from the province, and the first middle school in Pyongyang selects excellent students from all over the country.

The reason parents want to send their children to the first middle school is that even though they are admitted to prestigious universities such as Kim Il Sung University, most of them go on to college once they enter the first middle school.

In general middle schools, only about 10% of students go to college, but as most of the first middle school graduates go to college, admission to the first middle school itself is a tremendous advantage in college entrance.

Before we dive deeper into the first middle school, let's take a quick look at the North Korean university entrance system.

To go to a university in North Korea, you must take a preliminary exam for each region and a main exam for each university.

Students are eligible to take the main test based on their preliminary test scores, and the number of students who qualify for the main test varies by school.

This is because the North Korean authorities allocate the qualifications for taking the main university exam to each region, taking into account the number of enrolled students in all universities.

In other words, the North Korean Cabinet Board of Education allocates the number of students taking the main exam for each province, and the province allocates the number of students for the main exam for each high-end middle school according to the number assigned.

In North Korea, the qualifications assigned to the main exam are often expressed as receiving'ponts'.

'Pont' is a word derived from Russian and is the concept of garden or TO.

In general, students who are eligible to take the main exam for college entrance through a preliminary examination, that is, students who receive'Pont', account for about 20% of general middle school graduates, of which half of the students who pass the main exam and go to university are 10%. It is called degree.

It is difficult to compare the academic background of North Korea with South Korea, but only in terms of the rate of college enrollment, only very good students can go to college in North Korea (in the case of South Korea, as of 2012, 71.3% of high school graduates went to college. ).

It is said that students who deserve to go to college in high-end middle school may be asked to study by the principal.

to college The reason that admission

the first junior high school is advantageous in the college entrance examination is that the first junior high school is given priority when receiving the ponts.

The 1st junior high school is given priority to Chung-Ang University sites, which are difficult to obtain in general advanced junior high schools.

In North Korea, the meaning of Chung-Ang University and local universities is different from ours. Chung-Ang University refers to a university that selects students on a national level regardless of where the university is located, and a local university refers to a university that selects students only from that region.

It is said that most of the first junior high school students go on to college even if they cannot go to Chung-Ang University.

Students from the 1st middle school are also exempt from the effort that regular middle school students must do.

The first middle school is popular in North Korea because it is advantageous for college entrance, but the fact that you do not have to go to the military right after graduating from middle school is another preferred factor.

In North Korea, men usually go to the military if they do not go to college, but because life in the military is poor, parents prefer the first choice for their children to go to college, not the military.

After graduating from college, those who are willing to become executives go to the military, but those who do not intend to become executives may not go to the military.

The reason why I prefer to go to the first middle school is that if I go to the military after graduating from college, I can only be discharged after 3∽5 years of service.

For reference, the period of military service in North Korea is 12 years for men and 7 years for women, and special forces troops are required to serve for a long time at least 13 years.

The preference for the first China served as an opportunity to expand private education in North Korea.

This is a match between the rich parents' desire to send their children to the first place, and the interests in which teachers, whose livelihoods were difficult due to economic difficulties, had to make additional money.

The fact that the first city, which had been expanded to cities, counties, and districts, was reduced to one in Pyongyang and one province, which is related to the side effects of private education.

. Mathematics is one of the most important subjects in college or university, but

money may take math tutoring outside of school.

To this end, it is said that there are cases in which parents hire a famous math teacher to get home in the city and then do group tutoring for admission during the first phase.

In addition, parents have been influential from the time they entered elementary school (South Korean elementary schools) to send their children to a school with a mathematics master, run by a competent mathematics teacher or a competent mathematics teacher, and make a competent mathematics teacher into their child's homeroom teacher. It also demonstrates.

To be in the first place, you must study well, but your parents' financial strength must also be supported.

First of all, students live in a dormitory, because the school is not very capable and parents have to pay for living expenses.

In North Korea, as the influence of parents is becoming overwhelming, it is said that there are cases where parents directly receive a site for admission to college.

It is a parent's personal ability to bribe and win the power of the agency.

Due to the private education to go to the first middle school, the economic power of parents, which are necessary even after admission to the first middle school, and the influence of parents who can win the college entrance fee, North Korea's education has acquired educational background and special skills with the power of money. It is changing to a structure that can be used.

According to the gap in economic power, private education is conducted discriminately, and the gap between classes increases as time goes by.

For these reasons, it is said that in North Korea, the perception that'children from well-living families are good at studying' is becoming public.

It is surprising that there are complaining similar to those of South Korea on the other side of the division.

South and North Korea

Considering the enormous enthusiasm for education and great interest in university entrance exams,

South and North Korea can secure the fairness of university entrance exams that both South and North Korean residents can recognize in terms of education after unification. Is very important.

Regardless of North and South Korea, it is necessary to establish a system that allows students to go to university according to their skills.

But this is not as easy as it sounds.

Given that South Korean-led reunification will be achieved, it is absolutely disadvantageous for North Korean students to apply the South Korean entrance examination system to North Korean students to enter university.

It is unfair to apply the same entrance examination system to North and South Korean students, although the curriculum and educational level of North Korean students are significantly different from those of South Korea.

Admission conditions that are unfavorable for North Korean students are not overcome in one or two years.

Although the North Korean students are proficient, the teachers' guidance cannot be provided properly as North Korean teachers who need to teach college entrance exams need to be retrained.

In terms of educational infrastructure other than public education, that is, private academy, the difference between South and North Korea is striking.

If we ignore these conditions and apply the same admission rules to South and North Korean students, it is like running adults and children on the same line.

It will be difficult for North Korean parents who are all-in for their children's education to accept this admission system.

If so, it is possible to think of a way to give North Korean students the advantage of entrance exams, and to what extent South Korean students and parents can agree on this is questionable.

You might be able to think of ways to allocate some of the college entrance quota to North Korean students, or to give additional points to North Korean students' entrance exam scores, but how far can the agreement be achieved in view of South Korea's fierce competition for entrance exams?

You may agree with the principle that you need the advantages of the entrance exam, but it will not be easy to reach a specific point.

No matter what kind of entrance exam system is in place, it is difficult to create a system that satisfies both South and North Korea.

Eventually, you'll have to find a compromise in the middle line, but neither the southerners nor the northerners will be 100% satisfied.

The whole process of integration will probably be something like this.

It is not satisfactory, but it is the task of integration to find possible compromises. One more aspect to consider is whether there is any way to upgrade the structure of our society in the process of unification.

For example, it is a fundamental question as to whether the social structure that has to be hung up on college entrance exams should be maintained even after unification.

Can we make unification an opportunity to upgrade our society? It is necessary to seriously consider this part.

(Photo = Captured by Chosun Central TV, Pyongyang Chosun Central News, Yonhap News)