Mangyongdae_Revolutionary_School
Red Flag Mangyongdae Revolutionary School
Military academy in Pyongyang, North Korea
Red Flag Mangyongdae Revolutionary School[2] is an elite school[3] in Mangyongdae district of Pyongyang, North Korea.[4] Established in 1947,[5] it is a special education school with access only to the Workers' Party of Korea, Korean People's Army, administrative and high-ranking officials’ families.[4][6] Originally, the school was called the Pyongyang School for the Bereaved Children of Revolutionaries (평양혁명자유가족학원), which was to "receive children of fallen revolutionaries" and "educate their children and train them into fine revolutionaries after the independence of Korea".[7] It was located at Kan-ri, Daedong, South Pyongan. After the formal establishment of North Korea it was moved to Pyongyang and there the first statue of Kim Il Sung was erected, according to North Korean authorities, at the suggestion of Kim Jong-suk, Kim Il-sung's wife.[8]
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As of April 2012[update], Lt. Col. Kim Hak Bin was an administrator at the school.[9] Ri Kyong Hui was a biology teacher.[9]
At one time, Kim Won-ju, who was Kim Hyong-rok's third son, was assigned the position as State Security Department officer whose assignments included rooting out disloyalty to the regime among students at the ultra-elite Mangyongdae School.[3]
In addition to a high school curriculum, students receive military training.[10] Graduates enter the army for three years and usually become party members.[10] Generally, about 120 students graduate per year.[10] According to Kang Myong-do, "children of the elite, who in the past would have gone to Namsan now went to Mangyongdae." If the parents of a child were still alive, then only children of officials at least at the level of party department head were eligible to enroll.[11]
In 1982, O Guk-ryol, the then chief of the armed forces staff, said the school produced revolutionary warriors.[10]
By 1987, graduates[10] were:
- 20% of the central party committee,
- 30% of the party politburo, and
- 32% of the military commission of the central committee.
As of April 2013[update], the all girls version of this school is at the Kang Pan-sok Revolutionary School in the western city of Nampho.[9][12]
Kim Jong Un, who was educated in Switzerland, is not an alumnus of this school[9] and has visited this school six times as of July 2018,[13] the most recent being in 2022 where he attended the school's 75th anniversary.[1]
As of 2012, Mankyongdae School, the Kang Ban-sok Institute, and Namsan High School are for the families with very high Songbun rankings.[14] No wavering or hostile class children and very few children of high songbun, outside of the three “lines”, are allowed to attend these schools, and special schools like these do not exist outside of Pyongyang.[14]