Mangyongdae Revolutionary Institute is a special eight-year school, admitting four-year people's (elementary) school graduates, generally the children of leading central party officials above the rank of deputy department managing director and partisans, called "anti-Japanese fighters." The children of acknowledged espionage agents dispatched to South Korea, dubbed South Korea revolutionaries, top managers and chief engineers at grade 2 business establishments with a workforce of 10,000-15,000 or above who have died while in active service are also eligible to enter the institute. No entrance examinations are given.

The special school has about 800 students. Up to grade 6 their curricular are basically the same with those of the 6-year senior middle school, but in grades 7 and 8 they study mainly military and technical subjects at the level of a junior college.

Nurtured as the "sons of Kim Il Sung or Kim Jong Il," the students pride themselves on being such. In his lifetime, the late national founder and president Kim Il Sung, meeting Mangyongdae Revolutionary Institute kids during public events, halted and greeted them without fail, affectionately calling them "my sons."

Befitting the "sons of Kim Il Sung or Kim Jong Il," the children are treated in the best possible way under the best possible circumstances. Kim Jong Il once instructed the institute "to provide the students with whatever they want." If they want to have a musical instrument, they are given it. The same applies to sports facilities. If they say they are curious about the inside of television sets or computers, ordinary sets are brought into the classroom and disassembled before the students. Aircraft and tanks are kept at the institute for training purposes.

The instructors, all active military officers, are screened from among top-class experts in various fields. If one is reputed as "the best" in specific areas, he or she is recruited as an instructor following commissioning. A woman employee at the Foreign Ministry reputed for her excellence in English was commissioned as junior captain overnight before being assigned as an English instructor at the institute.

North Korean authorities claim that "seven persons serve one institute student." What is expected of the institute's graduates in return for such an extraordinary treatment is "absolute loyalty to Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il." They are consistently told "to be loyal to the father general risking your lives," and "to become a bullet or cannon for the dear general." Instilled in the students, who are repeatedly told "This is your country," are the consciousness of masters and a sense of self-pride.

Upon graduation, most graduates join the military services. After living as ordinary servicemen for about six months, they are enrolled in military colleges, upon the completion of which they are commissioned and become party members.

Mangyongdae Revolutionary Institute graduates occupy most key posts in the party, administration and armed forces. Having been transferred to grade 4 of the now defunct people's class of Mangyongdae Revolutionary Institute in November 1952 during the 1950-53 Korean War, Kim Jong Il attended the school for about 10 months, before getting transferred to an ordinary people's school. Graduating from the latter, he entered Namsan Senior Middle School, attended by the children of party leaders.

Mangyongdae Revolutionary Institute was founded in October 1947.

(Kim Kwang In, kki@chosun.com )