Private education also exists in North Korea

“Private tutoring is deeply inside Koreans’ DNA,” said professor Lee Myung-hyun, who served as a standing member of the Education Reform Committee and education minister during the Kim Young-sam administration. It was a joke he used to mock how Korean parents put their children through private tutoring everywhere. He led a campaign to stop the practice of lining up pupils according to grades, but his voice did little to stop the parents’ zeal for education, unsatisfied with the poor public education system.

North Korean public education consists of two years of kindergarten, five years of primary school, three years of junior high, and three years of high school. It boasts of a "12-year free mandatory education" including one year of kindergarten, but in reality, education is provided for free for only children of the elite-class, who often attend Pyongyang First Senior Middle School established in 1984 and First Senior Middle Schools of each province, which are boarding schools. Pupils of other schools receive no government support, and depend solely on parents for tuition. In the case of the highest class of kindergartens, young children are required to bring their own food and plates as well as pillows.

North Korean parents with kids attending primary school care most about math grades, as the subject is critical to enter a First Senior Middle School. In the entrance exam, math is tested in three steps unlike other subjects, and the allocated total score is 100 points, twice the share of other subjects. Some parents illegally put their children into a primary school with popular math teachers to get a chance for group tutoring, and even look to hire a private instructor outside school. In extreme cases, around a dozen parents gather money to buy a house for a tutor, which seems unfamiliar even to the infamous South Korean parents.

Graduating from a First Senior Middle School raises the chance of entering a central university, which recruit students from nationwide, and of becoming a teacher, doctor or a lawyer. College graduates are also eligible for a military duty of just 3-5 years compared to 10 years for a secondary school graduate. Becoming a party leader also requires a degree. In the past when being born in a high class family was the only requisite to be a party leader, people mocked them as "rockheads," but it is no more the case. "North Korean society is where educational – economic – political backgrounds are closely interconnected,” said Kim Jeong-won, senior researcher at the Korean Educational Development Institute, implying that the North's situation is uncannily similar to our own.