Education labor crisis has gripped schools in South Pyongan province. North Korean students have barely settled into the new school year before leaving class to expand school farmland plots. Parents in Kaechon have voiced sharp frustration over a system that prioritizes labor over learning. A Daily NK source reported Thursday that students at Kaechon schools have mobilized every day after school since mid-March. They are clearing land around existing school-run farming plots known as bueopji.
The work involves clearing shrubs and removing rocks from the surrounding land. Younger students in elementary school handle tidying work around the plots. First and second year middle school students also perform these lighter tasks. Third-year middle school students and high schoolers take on the heavier work of tilling. Tasks are divided by age to match physical capabilities.
Under the self-reliance policy, each institution must resolve its own financial and material needs without state support. Schools have long shifted facility repair costs and educational supply expenses onto students and their families. Now schools are mobilizing students to expand farmland as a way to address chronic food shortages among teaching staff. State rations have effectively stopped for school employees. School administrative offices have turned to farming their own plots to provide teachers with supplementary food.
Parents in Kaechon are growing increasingly vocal in their criticism. One parent said they could no longer tell whether their child was going to school to study or to work. The parent added sarcastically that at least the schools were teaching one thing well: labor. Some parents have offered resigned acceptance of the situation. They acknowledge that the school has little choice if it wants to put food on the table for its teachers. However, the majority are angry that the collapse of the state distribution system is now passing the burden to children.
Schools are now consumed by the need to farm their own food under the self-reliance mandate. The government’s ideological commitment to juche has created this practical contradiction. Students must work the fields so teachers can eat. State rations are unlikely to resume given North Korea’s ongoing economic difficulties. Schools will continue expanding farmland as long as teachers face hunger. Parents can only watch as their children spend more time clearing rocks than reading books. Future generations will enter adulthood with less academic preparation and more farming experience. North Korea’s self-reliance policy has inadvertently created a generation of student laborers. The international community rarely sees these daily struggles behind the country’s closed borders.
