North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) launched a sweeping inspection of senior middle schools in 2026 after a new elective subject system introduced at the start of the academic year produced mass failures in specialization track exams.
A source in North Hamgyong province told Daily NK on Friday that “a significant number of students fell below the required standard during specialization track exams conducted after the new semester began” at senior middle schools, the equivalent of high schools. The source added that the provincial party committee’s education department responded by issuing a stark warning: students who fail to meet the required level will be forcibly assigned to coal mines or construction sites.
According to the source, North Korea rolled out the elective subject system nationwide at all senior middle schools this year, administering placement exams at the start of the term to assess whether students were suited to their chosen specialization tracks. When results fell short of expectations, party authorities declared the situation “abnormal” and immediately dispatched inspection teams to schools across the province.
Teachers purged as party tightens grip on schools
The provincial party education department instructed schools to weed out underperforming students, demote them to “basic practical skills” classes and send them to labor-scarce sites such as coal mines and power plant construction projects. The source said the party’s position is that even the children of officials should be made an example of and punished if their abilities cannot be verified, in order to establish a nationwide education system that meets party standards.
The situation in North Hamgyong province was particularly striking because students at the province’s No. 1 Middle School, an elite school for academically gifted children, also failed to meet the passing standards set by the central authorities. Inspection teams are now focused on determining whether party education policies are being properly implemented at school level.
Similar inspections are also sweeping ordinary schools in Chongjin, the provincial capital, generating widespread anger among parents in the city. Many parents suspect the party is using the “underperforming student” label as a pretext to conscript young people into labor-starved industries such as mining and construction.
Some well-connected parents have reportedly gone so far as to exhaust their family savings in an attempt to bribe officials and prevent their children from being demoted and sent to harsh work sites. However, the source said the party is pressing the matter so forcefully that bribery is not working, leaving parents anxious and uncertain about what to do.
Teachers are also caught in the fallout. The source said instructors are being held collectively responsible for their students’ poor results, leaving them “trembling with fear.” At one No. 1 Middle School in North Hamgyong province, a homeroom teacher who had vouched for a student’s ability was branded an “incompetent ideological saboteur” and removed from the classroom after the student performed poorly on the exam. That case is now being cited as a representative example of collective punishment, and fear is spreading among teaching staff across the province.
Reporting from inside North Korea
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