North Korean parents forced to feed laborers renovating schools
North Korean parents in Chongjin are being forced to cover meals, snacks and cigarettes for laborers mobilized to renovate school facilities. The costs fall disproportionately on families with the least means, a Daily NK source reported Sunday. A district in Chongjin, the capital of North Hamgyong p
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North Hwanghae province officials oversee the delivery of new desks and chairs to a school during a provincial education support exhibition, as reported by the Rodong Sinmun on April 2. /Photo: Rodong Sinmun, News1
North Korean parents in Chongjin are being forced to cover meals, snacks and cigarettes for laborers mobilized to renovate school facilities. The costs fall disproportionately on families with the least means, a Daily NK source reported Sunday.
A district in Chongjin, the capital of North Hamgyong province, is pushing to earn the title of “model education district.” The designation requires all schools within its boundaries to attain “Red Flag of Honor” school status, a competitive benchmark tied to laboratory equipment, classroommaterials and physical facility standards. To meet those criteria, elementary schools across the district have launched repair campaigns covering hallways, walls and classroom floors.
On paper, affiliated support organizations are responsible for the renovation work. In practice, the schools themselves must cover materials and costs, while the support organizations contribute only labor. That arrangement effectively shifts the entire financial burden onto students and their families.
Costs land on families who can least afford it
The burden has grown more acute as parents must provide meals, snacks and cigarettes for every five or six workers assigned per class. Two classes typically group together and rotate provisioning duties. Each group has already absorbed two or three rounds of expenses within March alone.
Homeroom instructors who receive informal contributions from better-off or particularly loyal families excuse those families’ children from additional demands. They then direct the costs toward children from households with fewer resources.
According to the source, roughly 20 out of 30 students per class shoulder the actual costs. About 70% of the burden falls on children from economically struggling families rather than being distributed evenly.
“This has been going on for a long time, but the costs are getting larger because the district is pushing hard for the model education district title,” the source said. “Parents aren’t just resigning themselves to it. There is growing and vocal frustration over the financial demands piling up.”
A pattern rooted in structural underfunding
North Korea’s education system has historically relied on parents and local enterprises to supplement state shortfalls in school funding and materials, a pattern that has intensified as the state’s capacity to deliver resources has weakened in the years following the 1990s famine. The current campaign appears to be an extension of that informal taxation, now intensified by a top-down political drive for prestige titles.
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