How N.Korean Schools Indoctrinate Children

The North Korean regime seems to have revised school textbooks after Kim Jong-un became leader to ramp up the personality cult surrounding the ruling Kim family even further.

New North Korean elementary textbooks obtained by the Chosun Ilbo from an organization for defectors brim with largely fanciful anecdotes about Kim Jong-un, suggesting that brainwashing begins at an early age.

The illustrations include with pictures of Pyongyang's streets and a long-range missile being launched and tout them as shining achievements of the North Korean leader.

Around 70 percent of the content focuses on praising the Kim dynasty, including Kim Jong-il's mother, Kim Jong-suk.

One North Korean defector who used to be a teacher said, "North Korea teaches elementary school children not only about the childhood years of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il, but praises them as idols."

The propaganda stories are often preposterous. One is a about an ethnic Korean student in Japan who became disabled in an accident but was completely rehabilitated by medical treatment in the North.

But production values have plummeted as the North's economy deteriorates. "Until 2000, North Korean school texts were printed in color, but the new texts are printed in black and white except for the cover," the defector said.

One official at the organization for North Korean defectors said, "We publicized the texts to show everyone how kids in the North are being indoctrinated with the personality cult surrounding the Kim family."