Mick Hartley

The Daily NK, on the latest push in the idolisation of Kim Jong-un:

North Korea’s cabinet-level education ministry has ordered schools nationwide to devote more of their daily ideology sessions to Kim Jong Un’s personal achievements, scaling back content on his predecessors, a Daily NK source said, in a move that appears aimed at deepening the cult of personality around the North Korean leader.

“In mid-June, the education ministry sent a directive to the provincial education bureau telling it to actively instill in students the revolutionary activities and achievements of the Marshal,” a source in South Hamgyong province told Daily NK on Wednesday, using a title commonly applied to Kim Jong Un. “It said to reduce content on party policy or on the forerunner leaders and focus intensively on the Marshal instead,” referring to Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il.

North Korean schools hold roughly five minutes of what is called a “party ideology session” before regular classes begin, using a booklet known as “365 Days of Study” to teach students about the revolutionary activities of Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il and Kim Jong Un, along with party policy. According to the source, that session is now being devoted heavily to promoting Kim Jong Un specifically….

A teacher at a school in Hamhung’s Sapho district described the difficulty of the assignment. “The list of the Marshal’s revolutionary activities that we have to pass on to students keeps growing, and it’s easy to mix them up with the achievements of the past leaders, so a lot of teachers just lump them together and call them all ‘the Marshals,’” the teacher said, adding that this shortcut usually goes unnoticed unless an inspection is underway.

“The Marshals” – an everyday tale of North Korean folk, in which a family seize hold of a country and end up becoming gods.