It has been reported that North Korean college students are carrying out the task of transporting compost to the farm every day during their short vacation period of about a month. Although the authorities praise this as a ‘manifestation of patriotism,’ voices of dissatisfaction are actually rising among students.
According to Daily NK’s North Hamgyong Province source on the 10th, Ojung Heupcheongjin Teachers’ College ordered each student to transport one bucket of compost every day to a designated farm at the end of last month.
It is said that students who have to complete this compost task from the 3rd to the 25th of this month are heading to the farm every day even during vacation. Vacation should be a time for rest and recharge, but for North Korean college students, the meaning of vacation is meaningless.
The source explained that students who cannot complete the compost task are bound to receive criticism from the university youth league organization, so students are filling the quota in various ways.
It is known that some students ‘commute’ to designated farms by bicycle every day with the compost they produce, while others solve problems by working with farm practitioners to increase the amount of compost or increase the number of times it is transported.
Depending on the situation, students are divided into those who perform the compost task with great care and those who do not.
The source said, “Here (in North Korea), less than 15% of students enter college every year,” adding, “80 to 90 percent of students who enter college are children of families with a certain power and economic background. “Those students are completing their homework by doing business with the farm,” he said.
Sources said that in this situation, the dissatisfaction of students who go to the farm every day is growing. He said that there are many students who feel skeptical about the unfairness that appears in the process of completing assignments.
Moreover, the fact that this year’s method of collecting compost by platoon (class) and transporting it to the farm as a group was changed to requiring individual students to transport their quota themselves was also a factor in causing students’ dissatisfaction.
A source said, “The university seems to have decided that it is easier to give each student an individual assignment rather than working as a group. Students are paying attention to submitting slips (confirmation certificates) even though other students did not transport the compost properly.” He said.
Meanwhile, it has been reported that universities are giving meaning to the compost project by packaging it as ‘an act of showing loyalty and patriotism to the socialist system.’
However, the students reportedly scoff at this type of incitement and say, “I wish there were no vacation.”
Meanwhile, students who went to their hometowns for vacation must return to the university by the 20th and unconditionally complete the compost assignment that they have not been able to complete, but some students who find this difficult are doing the compost assignment without going to their hometown at all, the source said.
Source: www.dailynk.com
