News from the world's largest prison:
Military dictatorship North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) sent a message to all universities across the country Monday: hold off on the books for a while; we need workers.
The Telegraph reported that Pyongyang, the nation's capital, instructed all universities to shut down for ten months and send its students to work in factories, construction and agriculture. Students who are preparing to graduate within the next few months and foreign students have been given an exception and will be permitted to continue their studies. All other students can return to campus in April.
There are three reasons cited for the university closure in newspapers around the world.
The first is that the country is preparing for its 100th anniversary celebration of Kim Il Sung, the state's founder's, birth (and current leader Kim Jong-Il's 70th birthday) next spring, and they need all citizens to help prepare for the grandiose celebration.
The second is a need to build up the country's economy in a world economy that is suffering. North Korea can request all hands on deck, so to speak, to effectively boost the economy.
The third, and more controversial, reason comes from Japanese analysts who speculate that North Korea is afraid the Arab Spring will blow through North Korea, beginning with protests at the university level. One professor refers to a reported increase in riot gear purchases from China over the past several months in the Telegraph article.
Neither the reasoning nor the university closures themselves can be confirmed through North Korean news sources . The government controls virtually all news in and out of the secretive country and nearly all English news stories coming out of North Korea are meant to praise their leader and report on regional news. There are reports on gifts to Kim Jong-Il, European studies reporting positive information about North Korea and reports on flooding in the region, for example, but nothing that could cause controversy or instigate negative Western views of the country or its leadership.
According to an University World News article : "Diplomats in Pyongyang confirmed that students were being drafted into manual labour on the outskirts of the city until April next year to prepare for major celebrations to commemorate the centenary of the late leader Kim Il Sung's birthday. But they said this did not mean the closure of universities."
It is unknown how many universities and students are affected; most recent reports out of North Korea on the number of higher education institutions and students date back to the late 1980's.
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