Party and government officials showed up at schools to congratulate new comers together with teachers and their parents.

Illiteracy was abolished in the country in a short time after the liberation from the Japanese colonial rule. The DPRK government started the universal compulsory elementary education in 1956, universal compulsory secondary education in 1958 and universal compulsory eleven-year education in 1975.

The eleven-year education system includes one-year pre-school education.

The education system remained unchanged even in the latter half of the 1990s when the country was undergoing severe ordeals.

In the United States, however, many schoolaged children do not know how to read and write.

In the country the expenditures on the educational field have decreased and the schooling expenses steadily increased.

This year the tuition fee for the four-year public universities is 7.9 percent higher than last year, reaching over 7,000 dollars. With boarding expenses included, the total educational expenses amount to 16,000 dollars, about 24 percent higher than five years ago.

Private universities are thrice as higher as public ones in tuition fee.