Kim Jong Il's old school nurtures top scientists (Feature)

By Bill Smith Jun 11, 2009, 3:04 GMT

   Pyongyang - As North Korea's nuclear tests and missile launches affirm its technological and military prowess, alarming its neighbours and drawing international criticism, a school once attended by leader Kim Jong Il is nurturing the country's next generation of top scientists.

   'The students have learned how to clone a rabbit,' Kim Jong Hyun, the vice principal of the Number One Middle School in Pyongyang, said proudly during a recent tour of a biology laboratory at the school.

   The school in the North Korean capital focusses mainly on mathematics, biology, chemistry and physics with most students going on to attend science universities, Kim Jong Hyun said through a government interpreter.

   On the wall of a physics classroom were drawings and diagrams explaining surface-to-air missiles, planes, rockets and a magnetic levitation train.

   Nearby was a cutaway model of a submarine while other laboratories held high-technology equipment, such as an electron microscope.

   'These were donated by Kim Jong Il,' the vice principal said as he showed off new machines in a chemistry laboratory.

   In another classroom with a computer on each desk, a boy had an English textbook open at a page with a street scene in England and questions about a woman who had lost her dog.

   On the English teacher's computer screen was 'Unit 7: No pollution in our country.'

   'This school is a model school for our country,' Kim Jong Hyun said.

   'General Kim Jong Il studied here in this school,' he said.

   According to an official biography, the North Korean leader, now an ailing 67-year-old, attended the school from 1954 to 1960.

   Kim Jong Il is said to have set out the idea for turning the school into a centre for excellence focussing on science after an April 1984 visit there.

   'He decided that the school should be for very talented students, and they should concentrate on things like physics and biology,' Kim Jong Hyun said.

   'From September 1, 1984, this school has mobilized the talented children from throughout the country,' he said.

   Kim Jong Il and his father, Kim Il Sung, visited the school again in February 1985, he said.

   Portraits of the current and former North Korean leaders are hung above the blackboards at the front of each classroom.

   Kim Jong Hyun said about 1,000 children now attend the elite high school in central Pyongyang with another 700 enrolled at the attached primary school. It has a total floor area of about 40,000 square metres, he said.

   Reports from Seoul said the school and 12 similar ones in North Korea are comparable to South Korean science high schools.

   In 2006, North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said the Number One Middle School owns 'several thousand pieces of experimental apparatus' plus 'nearly 20 laboratories, a music room, a gymnasium, a swimming pool and a library commensurate with the high level of education.'

   KCNA said the school had 'produced a lot of talents' who had been in charge of the scientific and technical development of the country over the previous 22 years.

   Graduates of the school included 'doctors and scientists in their 20s in the fields of mathematics, physics and life science and hundreds of personnel with academic degrees and titles,' it said.

   But only about 20 per cent of the school's students are girls, Kim Jong Hyun said, far lower than the average of 49 per cent for primary and secondary schools reported by North Korea to a United Nations equality watchdog in 2005.

   Kim Jong Hyun said the Number One Middle School is open to all children via a competitive entrance examination with about 70 per cent enrolled from outside Pyongyang.

   Happily for the teachers, mathematics and physics are the most popular subjects but the children also enjoy sports like basketball and football, he said.

   'Their brains are very clever, so they are good at studying and good at sports,' Kim Jong Hyun said.

   In a reflection of the students' intelligence, children from the school won two gold medals and four silver medals in July at the 49th International Mathematical Olympiad in Spain.

   Some of the older students might benefit from the Korean Workers' Party's five-year plan through 2012 to increase investment and 'put the country's science and technology on an advanced level in the shortest possible period.'

   In the June edition of the government's English-language magazine Pictorial Korea, Kim Jong Il was quoted as saying 10 years ago that scientists were the 'treasures of the country.'

   'A huge army of scientists and technicians equipped with deep knowledge is our greatest asset, and it guarantees the eternal prosperity of the country,' Kim Jong Il said.

   The magazine showed a photograph of a rocket with the caption 'launch of satellite Kwangmyongsong-2 in 2009' despite US and South Korean scientists saying they saw no evidence of anything left in orbit after the launch of a rocket on April 5.

   'A brilliant future lies before the DPRK because it has many promising scientists and technicians,' the magazine said, referring to North Korea by the acronym of its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

   'Among them are those who successfully launched satellite Kwangmyongsong-2, developed by their own wisdom and technology,' it said.