North Korea adds extra year to schooling
North Korea has announced the first official change of policy under Kim Jong-un: an extra year of schooling for all children.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un (front L) visits Kyongsang Kindergarten Photo: REUTERS
By Malcolm Moore, Beijing
11:40AM BST 25 Sep 2012
North Korea's parliament, the Supreme People's Assembly (SPA), voted in a one-day meeting to extend state-sponsored schooling to 12 years from the previous 11, according to the official Korean Central News Agency. It did not explain how the government would pay for the change.
The 29-year-old Mr Kim, who was declared the country's supreme leader last December after the death of his father, Kim Jong-il, attended the session, according to KCNA.
The announcement wrong footed analysts, who were expecting news of some sort of economic reform.
Over the summer, the Daily NK, a website about North Korea run from South Korea, revealed that Pyongyang's leaders were circulating a "new economic management system" called the "June 28 policy".
This June 28 Policy could see North Korea follow China's of Vietnam's example in reforming and opening up its economy. "People have started hoping for change more than ever," said an unnamed source from North Hamkyung Province to the Daily NK.
"Nowadays it is not just the cadres, it is the ordinary people as well who are arguing over reform and opening," he added.
There was speculation that this policy would be implemented at the beginning of October. So when an extraordinary session of the Supreme People's Assembly was announced this week, the unveiling of wider economic reforms was expected.
"They have surprised us again, but then when they do these big things, they never announce them" said Aidan Foster-Carter, an honorary senior research fellow in Sociology and Modern Korea at Leeds university.
He pointed to when North Korea floated its currency in 2001 and when it redenominated the value of banknotes in 2009 as two examples of the hermit kingdom's opacity.
However, he said that there were signs that North Korea was moving to reform its economy. On Monday, the Associated Press confirmed for the first time, from named sources within North Korea, that farmers would be allowed to keep a greater share of their produce.
Two workers at a farm south of Pyongyang said they were informed of the proposed changes during meetings last month and that they should take effect with this year's upcoming Autumn harvest. The Ministry of Agriculture has not announced the changes.
"We expect a good harvest this year," said O Yong Ae, at Migok Cooperative Farm, one of the largest and most productive farms in South Hwanghae province. "I am happy because we can keep the crops we worked so hard to grow."
Currently, farmers crops go into a collective distribution system, which aims to provide North Koreans with 600g to 700g of rice or corn a day. However, there has been a persistent shortfall of more than
400,000 tons a year of staple grains.
"If they mean this reform, then it is not clear that the state will be able to requisition enough to feed what is still a mostly urban society," commented Mr Foster-Carter. "The difference between North Korea and China and Vietnam is that it does not have many people left on the land," he said. In 2010, over 60 per cent of North Korea's 20 million population lived in cities.
The country is mountainous, with little arable land, and its prosperity was based on a supply of cheap oil from the former Soviet Union, which provided electricity, fertiliser and fuel for fleets of
Russian tractors. North Korea has struggled to feed itself ever since that link was severed.
"When Russia cut them off, there was this extraordinary paralysis and within a decade there was famine," said Mr Foster-Carter. However, sources inside China have also suggested that North Korea is
keen to reform its economy, but is wary of maintaining stability and of giving up too much to Beijing, which has substantial interests in North Korean natural resources.
