Emphasizing once again the ruling party’s policy to cultivate talented students, North Korea is calling for improved educational methods to develop the minds of preschool children in 2022, the second year of the state’s five-year economic development plan.
A Daily NK source in Pyongyang said Tuesday that the Cabinet’s education committee carried out its interim review of the educational sector’s efforts this year to achieve the party’s “talent farming” policy within the period of the five-year plan.
“The results of the review emphasized most of all [the need for] research to improve educational methods to cultivate the minds of preschool children, as well as the compilation of textbooks,” he said.
The education committee reportedly ordered provincial education departments to work with academic screening committees to host virtual conferences to present pedagogical papers on preschool education by the end of the month.
According to the source, Pyongyang’s education department plans to select “exemplary” kindergarten heads, educators and pedagogical researchers specialized in preschool education to take part in its conference.
The city’s education department says it aims to host the conference to improve educational methods, knowing full well that developing the skills of preschool children lies at the heart of the party’s education policy of “farming” talent.
The city’s education department also reportedly emphasized that the conference is one of the national government’s measures to bolster preschool education standards.
The source told Daily NK that the conference would be methodological in nature, setting the direction of research papers on preschool education to be written in the second half of the year.
“Going forward, they’ll be reviews of pedagogical papers on methods to develop the intelligence [of preschool children] based on, say, math education using calculators or science education where children assemble models of robots,” he said.
In fact, Cabinet’s education committee reportedly plans to screen and compile outstanding papers from the conferences into a “teaching plan to develop intelligence” to use at educational facilities like Pyongyang No.1 Senior Middle School’s kindergarten next year.
The source further told Daily NK that the education committee said it would provide political and material support so that preschool educators and researchers can produce even more high-quality pedagogical papers that can contribute to achieving the party’s policy of “talent farming.”
