Educational Aid Fund and Stipends

The respected Comrade Kim Jong Un sent educational aid fund and stipends amounting to 251.18 million yen in Japanese currency to the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon) in the run-up to the 110th birth anniversary of President Kim Il Sung.

It has been 65 years that the DPRK started to send educational aid fund and stipends for them.

The situation of national education at the time of founding Chongryon was in difficulties owing to the Japanese reactionaries’ harsh repression.

In September Juche 44 (1955) President Kim Il Sung met members of a congratulatory group of Koreans in Japan, who visited their homeland to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the country’s liberation, and said that he would render active assistance to the democratic national education of Korean compatriots in Japan, and that he would send educational aid fund, stipends and textbooks to them.

At that time every penny counted for the country which was carrying on postwar reconstruction.

Saying that the people in the homeland should send fund for education of the children of compatriots in Japan by tightening their belts even though it would mean failing to build one or two more factories, Kim Il Sung took a measure for sending large sums of educational aid fund and stipends for them. Thus, a Cabinet plenary meeting, which discussed the draft state budget in January Juche 46 (1957), included in the budget the item Educational Aid Fund and Stipends for the Children of Compatriots in Japan, and the educational aid fund and stipends, which amounted to over 120 million yen at that time, was conveyed to Chongryon as the first installment on April 8 that year.

The educational aid fund and stipends sent by the homeland made the Korean compatriots burn their hearts with the zeal for patriotism and the development of national education. They built new school buildings, halls of culture and gymnasiums in different parts with the money. They also built Korea University, the supreme temple of national education, in the middle of Tokyo with the educational aid fund sent to them by their homeland on the second installment in October 1957.

Having always paid close attention to the development of national education by Chongryon, Kim Il Sung on his ceaseless guidance trips to factories and rural villages stressed the need to increase production so as to send educational aid fund and stipends to the children of compatriots in Japan every year, always thinking of them.

Chairman Kim Jong Il also paid close attention to this work, saying that as it was related to bringing up the rising generations of Chongryon, he would like to send all the wealth of the country, and that there was nothing to spare for sending educational aid to Chongryon.

He would emphasize that sending educational aid fund and stipends to Chongryon was a matter of different character from investing in the sector of the national economy.

His warm love for the rising generations of compatriots in Japan continued even in the period when the whole country was overcoming difficulties after suffering a great loss of the nation–the death of President Kim Il Sung.

The history of loving care shown by Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il for the development of the national education by Chongryon still continues thanks to the concern shown by Kim Jong Un.

The educational aid fund and stipends sent to the children of compatriots in Japan total 49 130 570 390 yen in 168 installments as of now.