North Korea ramps up anti-US indoctrination for students with new tactics

Participants in the 79th anniversary celebration of the Korean Children’s Union visit the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum in Pyongyang, in this photo provided by the Korean Central News Agency on June 9. (Yonhap)

North Korea has introduced new methods to drill anti-US ideology into students in Pyongyang, including the establishment of anti-US exhibition halls, state media reports said Friday.

Schools in Pyongyang have been "effectively conducting anti-imperialist and anti-American class education tailored to students’ ages and psychological characteristics," the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported in a Korean-language dispatch.

State media further explained that “new educational methods are being actively explored and applied” at Jangsan Senior Middle School and Ryonghung Primary School in Pyongyang.

At the schools, ideological education centers that “show the aggressive nature of imperialists” have been set up, KCNA reported. Indoctrination is conducted regularly through such anti-US exhibitions so that “the process of learning and daily life itself becomes a process of cultivating class consciousness.”

Efforts are also being made to provide practical education through field visits at Ryomyong Senior Middle School in Pyongyang to “arm the students with thorough anti-imperialist and anti-American class consciousness,” according to KCNA.

“Students are deeply imprinting the unchanging hostile view that the aggressive nature of enemies never changes and that illusions about the enemy mean death,” through visiting key places for class consciousness education and holding “rallies to resolve revenge," state media reported.

KCNA also noted that educators at Sinri Primary School in Pyongyang are using materials that show the “tearful lives experienced by their grandparents’ generation in the past, thereby increasing the effectiveness” of anti-US ideological education.

Taedonggang Senior Middle School and other schools in Pyongyang “have prepared students to become embodyers of passionate patriotism and firm class consciousness.”

To that end, anti-US ideological materials are “widely incorporated into teaching practice,” and exhibitions of paintings on anti-US themes are being held, KCNA added.

The North Korean state media report came ahead of the “month of anti-US joint struggle,” which the country designates as the period between June 25 and July 27. North Korea claims the Korean War broke out on June 25, followed by a US invasion, while celebrating July 27 as the “Day of Victory in the Great Fatherland Liberation War.”

North Korea has traditionally reinforced anti-American propaganda and sentiment during that period, though the level of anti-US messaging has varied depending on its ties with Washington.

Pyongyang suspended anti-American events held during this month and toned down anti-US rhetoric from 2018 to 2021 in the wake of the first US-North Korea summit on June 12, 2018.

However, the Kim Jong-un regime resumed politically charged events in 2022, including nationwide anti-American rallies and art exhibitions.