The Privileged in Korea :: Weekly Blitz

In the Democratic People's Republic of Korea the state bears full responsibility for education and edification of children. A simple proof may be the fact that schoolchildren's palaces are found throughout the country.

The Pyongyang Students and Children's Palace situated in the centre of Pyongyang is visited by over 10 000 schoolchildren a day, who participate in extracurricular activities. The palace was built in 1963, the first of its kind in Korea, and has a floor space of 50 000 m². It occupies an area of 110 000 m². It has more than 200 laboratories and practice rooms that cover all fields including social and natural sciences, literature and the arts, sports, industry and agriculture. The palace also has a library with hundreds of thousands of books, an astronomical observatory and an observation platform on the 10th floor of its tower. It organizes music and dance performances, exhibitions of creative works, recitals and sport games.

The Mangyongdae Schoolchildren's Palace is the biggest in Korea, covering an area of 300 000 m². Its floor space is 120 000 m². The palace consists of several buildings for science, the arts, sports and an indoor swimming pool. It has many rooms for sci-tech learning—video lecture, motor practice and an astronomical telescope—and rooms for such music and art circles as the accordion and kayagum circles and embroidery and Korean painting circles. A large number of schoolchildren visit the palace to train and develop themselves to their heart's content.

There are many schoolchildren's palaces in Korea, and the state provides them with necessary facilities for experiments and practice. It is an invariable stand of the Workers' Party of Korea and the DPRK government that nothing should be spared for children.

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