Sources reported that the Education Department of the Jeongju City People’s Committee in North Pyongan Province conducted a comprehensive review of elementary and high schools (middle and high schools) in Jeongju City from the 1st to the 5th to determine whether students were excessively called out during the summer vacation period.
On the 9th, Daily NK’s North Pyongan Province source said, “This project is a culmination of the Cabinet Ministry of Education’s directive early last month to ‘avoid excessive academic pressure and mobilization of students during summer vacation and promote healthy physical development and mental rest. ‘”
The school is evaluating whether the education authorities’ directive to ensure students’ rest has been properly implemented, but sources say that schools have no choice but to call students even during vacations due to various social mobilizations that are issued at each period.
Students are required to go to school every Saturday, even during vacation, to have their homeroom teachers check their homework and participate in weekly life reviews, and are also mobilized for various types of labor, including the Kimmaegi Battle. Above all, this year, each school set a day to go to farms that had been damaged by heavy rain, and they were in charge of cleaning up the fields and rice paddies as well as the environment of the farm houses.
A source said, “In the past, students only had to go out once a week, but this year, there were so many mobilizations under the pretext of disaster recovery that they were mobilized on average three times a week.”
The problem is that the city’s education department is fully aware of this situation, but it has started to summarize whether or not the Ministry of Education’s instructions are being implemented, the source said. The grievances on the ground are being put on the back burner, and the summary is being conducted as a kind of show to look good to the center, which is harassing lower-level units.
A source said, “The Education Code Enforcement Act clearly states that ‘educational institutions must plan and organize vacations in accordance with the Education Code,’ but teachers are unable to plan and organize vacations in accordance with the law,” adding, “They are on edge trying to get the number of students to fill the mobilization tasks assigned to each class even during the ten-day re-education (training) period during vacation.”
In fact, it is said that the Ministry of Education’s recent summary has caused dissatisfaction among teachers.
According to sources, a teacher at a high school in Jeongju City complained, “We have to call the students out every day, so holding a general meeting is like calling the students out. Am I calling the students out to help me tend my garden?”
In particular, the city’s education department is said to have further angered teachers by announcing that it will consider taking measures to require homeroom teachers who are evaluated as having excessively called upon students to give up their classes.
A source said, “Some middle school teachers were saying, ‘The city’s education department is organizing this strike to show off their face,’ and ‘It’s completely unreasonable for them to mobilize students while demanding that teachers give up their classes.’”
In this situation, it is said that the school principals were sweating bullets trying to console the teachers and tell them, “This general meeting is based on a survey of the students, so the homeroom teachers should explain the situation well to the students.”
Meanwhile, a source said, “The city’s education department stated that it expects this report to play an important role in protecting students’ right to rest in the future, but teachers criticized it, saying that it is stuck in a perception that is far from reality.”
Source: www.dailynk.com
