Christian School Continues to Operate in Atheist North Korea
Most Westerners' knowledge of North Korea is about a hermit country of ignorant inhabitants with no quality education. Many might also think that foreigners are not welcome there and can be shot on sight. Therefore, it might surprise that an Evangelical-run school operates in the capital that is staffed by an international faculty.
At first glance, Pyongyang University of Science and Technology seems like an ordinary Asian private school, with its well-kept campus grounds and students who look smart on coat-and-tie their uniform. But there is a certain eeriness to what seems like order and discipline felt in its environment.
Walking down the halls, one would see huge portraits of the country's young leader Kim Jong Un as well as his father and grandfather, leaders that came before him. Students march to the cafeteria singing praises to Mr. Kim. It is almost like a school of idol worship.
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Desperate for top-notch education, the North Korean leadership allowed the school to operate in October 2010 with a set of conditions. These include using a curriculum and materials approved only by the government and a prohibition among its 90 foreign volunteers to proselytize to the students.
The teaching staff, many of whom are Korean-American missionaries, have to be careful of their actions. One American professor was deported for trying to give a student a Bible. Two instructors, one of them a pastor, were arrested for still unknown charges.
The school offers courses in computer science, agriculture, international finance and management, all taught in English to scions of the country's elite. The school has been criticized for providing knowledge to future hackers and other skills that may be used against the West.
Being in direct contact with the future leaders of the country could be an opportunity to indoctrinate them, but the students were instructed to report any subversive comments. But for the teachers, just the thought of changing the children's view of foreigners in a positive light is worth the risk.
"I am not a capitalist, I am not a Communist, I am a love-ist," the university's founder, Kim Chin-kyung.
