This study concentrates on analyzing the realities of the early childhood education in North Korea. After the liberation of Korea, the North drew all of their policies out of Karl Marx’s and Nikolai Lenin’s socialistic ideology. The early childhood education policy has been one of the policies to fulfill Marx’s ideology which after the establishment of the juche ideology in 1970 replaced the child nurture education ideology. North Korea’s child nurture education ideology can be classified as first, growing the child into a revolutionary juche type person. Second, make them recognize Kim Il Sung as the only leader for the juche ideology. Third, educate them to be guardians for the revolution of communism. And finally, it can be classified as the liberation of the female from children fostering and family duties. After the death of their chief Kim Il Sung in 1994, their system changed by focusing on Kim Jung Il. During 1999, in which North Korean law and ordinances experienced fast changes, the 1976 enacted [early childhood education law] underwent additions and rectifications. Looking at North Korea’s early childhood education based on those changes, children now are receiving collectively nurture education at early childhood education institutions such as day nursing centers and Kindergarten, if early at age of 1 month. Early childhood education expenses are all covered by the government and society. The basic idea of the preschool system is to raise them strong and implant a communistic mind early on. In North Korea children age 1 month to 3 years old receive nurture education at the day nursing center, and children of age 4 years to 5 years receive their education at the Kindergarten. They maintain a same age grouping system. Especially in Kindergarten the preschool education of the higher classes are regarded as compulsive education. North Korea’s early childhood education has a lot to do with the woman’s liberation of household responsibilities. Therefore the configuration of the childcare institutions is divided regarding women employment patterns. Thus, there are childcare institutions in which they can entrust their child for one day, one week, 10 days, or even for one month. The purpose of North Korea’s early childhood education is to prepare the ground for the school education in which the main focus is on ideology. Particularly in 1995, after Kim Il Sung’s death, they published an education guide with the title ‘Children have to be well educated from early on’and thereby enforced ideology education for children. It appeared that the main context about the ideology education is based on stories about Kim Il Sung’s and Kim Jung Il’s childhood. According to the principal of North Korea’s educational constitution they enforce intellectual education, culture of aesthetic sentiments and physical education to create an overall developed communistic being which has combined aspects of revolutionary-, working class conversions and virtue and knowledge. In terms of intellectual education in which classes are focused on the teacher, nowadays tend to practice more active participation methods which involve singing and observations, most of the class material is still about Kim Il Sung and Kim Jung Il. An efficient way to transmit educational context is to make them aware, classify them into age and physiological characteristics and assuring a unified way of teaching, and so on. The training for new teachers of formal school education and early childhood education falls to the obligation of each province. Thus, every district has the obligation and responsibility to educate new teachers or caretakers of the day nursing center and Kindergarten through formal school education channels. In case of shortage of teachers and caretakers they use informal school education channels to supply of those. Furthermore present teachers are required to take re-education classes to provide for excellent performance. This re-education is exists to extend the teachers pragmatic political abilities and to put emphasized meaning on the revolutionary worldview.

• 구경선(서울신학대학교 부교수)