North Korean leader Kim Jong Un stated in January that he will no longer pursue reconciliation and reunification with South Korea. (Photo: AFP)
North Korea’s communist regime has ordered teachers to manually remove the words "reunification," "reconciliation," and "fellow countrymen," from textbooks in line with the party policy, says a report.
The Ministry of Education initiated the process following leader Kim Jong Un’s policy speech to the Supreme People’s Assembly in January calling for the removal of the words, Daily NK reported on April 5.
“For this year, schools have been ordered to use pens or pencils to cross out words banned by the state in textbooks,” an unnamed source told Daily NK adding that the directive was “carried out by the teaching staff.”
Reportedly, the education authorities were ordered to review all textbooks in March this year and decided to prepare a new batch of textbooks.
In January this year, Kim stated that unification with South Korea was no longer possible and that the North Korean constitution should be amended to designate it as the nation’s "principal enemy,” the BBC reported.
He also added that if a war breaks out on the Korean peninsula, the country's constitution should reflect the issue of "occupying," "recapturing" and "incorporating" the South into the North Korean territory.
The move had prompted government departments like the North Korean Ministry of Education to initiate changes in the school curriculum, Daily NK reported.
“Teachers have explained to their students that the orders must be followed because they are in line with the party’s efforts to establish a correct view of history,” the source said.
The teachers who fail to comply with the orders face disciplinary actions.
In March, an elementary school teacher in Uiju, North Pyongan Province, was dismissed from her job after she instructed the students to leave their textbooks in their desks because she felt that the orders were too cumbersome to carry out.
The teacher was punished for dereliction of duty for disobeying the ministry’s directive and failing to explain to the students that the order was in line with party policy.
The punished teacher was also accused of having “ideological problems,” the source said.
“Teachers were supposed to spend five minutes before class crossing out the phrases identified by the party and giving the students a correct understanding of the party’s policies,” the source said.
North Korean teachers were given an emergency lecture in February and March this year by provincial, city, and county education authorities.
The teachers were told that they are “revolutionaries charged with preparing the next generation to lead the future of the fatherland and that they should be ideologically equipped as only such revolutionaries should be,” the source said.
Some of the teachers felt that the revision of the textbooks by hand and the ban on even uttering the word “reunification” in the classrooms were “ridiculous,” the source told Daily NK.
“But they have to keep quiet, knowing that they could be fired for saying the wrong thing,” the source said.
The teachers in North Korea have been banned from even singing songs like “Reunification, May You Come Soon.”
