Factory College Born in Flames of War

Legendary tales born in the flames of the hard-fought war still touch heartstrings of all the people.

Among those stories is the one about a factory college for worker-students.

The mere fact that the victorious future of the country was designed and the talents for shouldering it grew up amid the fierce war, synonym for destruction, makes our people keenly feel the greatness of President Kim Il Sung, a peerlessly great man, who led our people to the brilliant victory with his gifted wisdom and the firm conviction in victory.

One January day in １９５１, the President visited Kunja-ri where a munitions factory was situated.

While discussing with officials of the factory about the orientation and ways for rehabilitating the factory, the President was reported that personnel affairs were the knotty problem arising in rehabilitating the factory and managing it.

After a few moments of contemplation, the President said that we were short of labor, but what we lacked more than labor were cadres.

If we build a vocational school and college at the factory for worker-students, all the workers will be able to produce weaponry by day and acquire knowledge of modern science and technology at the school by night to grow up to be able technicians, he taught.

A factory college enables workers to get involved in the higher education system and learn advanced science and technology to their heart’s content without quitting the production.

It was, indeed, a new and unique, yet the most revolutionary educational system which could be established only by the peerless great man possessed of gifted and far-sighted wisdom, matchless pluck and the great ambition.

However, as the officials didn’t even know the concepts of factory college and lacked experience, they were at a loss what to do first.

One day in February １９５１, the President again visited Kunja-ri and gave precious instructions as regards the founding of a factory college.

Stating that it is an important task for the factory to improve the training of technical personnel, the President indicated in detail such issues as the one for selecting able persons who tempered themselves in the flames of the war after founding a night college at the factory and training them as excellent technical cadres and the one of providing guidance and aid to the work of the factory college in a responsible way and, in particular, ensuring all the necessary conditions lest students should feel any inconvenience in studying.

The President’s field guidance of that day served as a turning point in founding a factory college and vocational school for worker-students.

Though almost all the universities across the country were lacking in teachers, the President saw that university teachers recalled from the warfront were dispatched to the factory first and even sent precious medicines good for health recovery to teachers who were suffering from ill health.

Thanks to his wise guidance and attentive care, the work for founding the factory college was successfully progressed and it finally greeted the opening day after only a few months.

A factory college born in the flames of the war, this was a great victory of the Juche-oriented idea on education and the unique policy on training technical talents set forth by the President and proud fruition of our Party’s struggle for training able technicians who will shoulder not only the country’s defence industry but the overall development of the national economy.

Rodong Sinmun