page_title: Education in North Korea
section_title: Adult education
hierarchical_section_title: Education in North Korea / Adult education
caption_attribution_description: English lecture
context_page_description: Education in North Korea is universal and state-funded schooling by the government. The self-reported national literacy rate for citizens at age of 15 and older is 100 percent. Children go through one year of kindergarten, four years of primary education, six years of secondary education, and then on to university.
  In 1988 the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization reported that North Korea had 35,000 preprimary, 59,000 primary, 111,000 secondary, 23,000 college and university, and 4,000 other postsecondary teachers.
context_section_description: Because of the emphasis on the continued education of all members of society, adult or work-study education is actively supported. Practically everyone in the country participates in some educational activity, usually in the form of "small study groups."
  In the early 1990s, people in rural areas were organized into "five-family teams." These teams have educational and surveillance functions; the teams are the responsibility of a schoolteacher or other intellectual, each one being in charge of several such teams. Office and factory workers have two-hour "study sessions" after work each day on both political and technical subjects.
  Adult education institutions in the early 1990s included "factory colleges", which teach workers new skills and techniques without forcing them to quit their jobs. Students work part-time, study in the evening, or take short intensive courses, leaving their workplaces for only a month or so. There are also "farm colleges", where rural workers can study to become engineers and assistant engineers, and a system of correspondence courses. For workers and peasants who are unable to receive regular school education, there are "laborers' schools" and "laborers' senior middle schools," although in the early 1990s these had become less important with the introduction of compulsory eleven-year education.
caption: English lecture at the Grand People's Study House in Pyongyang
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