(2020.2.10.)

On September 5, Juche 38 (1949) President Kim Il Sung received from his secretary a report about a problem relating to the work of Mangyongdae Revolutionary School.

It was about some children of revolutionary martyrs who were admitted into the school in September that year with the beginning of the new school year. The over 20-year-olds were both much older and taller than the students in the senior class, but they were all illiterate because they had been unable to go even to primary school.

In order to let them get systematic education the school had put them in the junior class to study together with the younger students. But later on not a few problems had occurred in their life and learning, to say nothing of the fact that they felt shameful. 

The headteacher could not make a decision with the illiterate students whether to let them skip the junior course and begin their studies in the senior course. And he knew he could not leave them idle away, either. At last he had decided to report the problem to the President.

Hearing the story, the President silently walked up and down the office, feeling sorry about the children who could not read and write yet though they were almost grown up. Now he told his secretary: Their fathers were all our comrades who struggled with devotion for the revolution. They asked us to take care of their children when they laid down their lives on the road of revolution. We are obliged to raise them into true revolutionaries like their fathers, and to this end we have to give them education definitely.

Then he added: Now the [Kim Il Sung] university has a special preliminary course for the older children of revolutionary martyrs. I propose that the older students in the junior class of Mangyongdae Revolutionary School be transferred to the preliminary course of the university and a military academy.

His words reminded the secretary of how the President, like true father, took good care of them in the school so as to help them learn to their heart’s content. So concerned about their education he took such a special measure.

The President asked the secretary to make sure that the university organized study groups to let the students help one another and acquire basic knowledge soon in the preliminary course and go up to the main course. Mangyongdae Revolutionary School should continue to take care of them in and out of their studies like their parents would do even after they move to the preliminary course of the university, he instructed seriously. 

The day they left for the university, the orphaned children and the teaching staff of the school and the university were all moved to tears for the great care of the President.