Learning Freedom: Help Educate North Korean Youth

One of the major goals of the program is to help youth from North Korea pursue meaningful and successful careers now that they are members of a modern and free society. Back in North Korea they lacked the freedom to chart their own career paths. In North Korea, the profession is chosen by the government, and it is largely based on family’s place in the country’s rigid political and social hierarchy. NKHR’s career training program helps young North Korean students navigate the difficult decisions integral to finding fulfilment in their careers. The career training program typically spans nine months and includes visits to college campuses throughout Seoul, college entrance information sessions, career exploration activities, and one-on-one mentoring. The program introduces new academic and career tracks that match students’ interests and talents.

One of the integral parts of the program is to prepare students to enter the universities of their choice. This process starts with interviews with the NKHR’s staff to learn about the students’ interests and scholastic aptitude. The process of writing their letter of purpose - an integral part of the university entrance application process – follows and lasts several weeks. This is the most difficult part for all of the North Korean students, from the choice of vocabulary to the content; practically everything has to be corrected. The NKHR’s staff helps the students to improve the letter and asks the students to bring the upgraded versions, sometimes few times. This is very disheartening for many of the students, who become disappointed with their lack of ability to write even a letter of introduction. We show them however previous of their writings to prove to them how much they improved and to encourage them.

The next stage of the program is the college entrance exams preparation. Each university has different requirements for the North Korean students; the top universities require both writing and oral tests, others may require only interview with the applicant based on their application letter and previous school documents. The NKHR staff prepares the students for both exams. We hire specialists which offer mock interview sessions to the students. During the sessions, the students learn everything, from proper greetings to engaging in a small talk and self-introduction based on what applicants have written in their letters of purpose. The students are also mentored on the most common questions appearing during the interviews and evaluated based on their individual performance during the mock interview. Many students are also offered Korean language and pronunciation assistance, to learn to speak with confidence and understandably for the interlocutor and to learn to look at the interlocutor. Majority of North Korean students learned to not raise their heads while supervisor in North Korea talked to them and so, they have a bad habit of avoiding the other person’s sight while having conversations. They also tend to speak quietly and with lack of confidence.

Majority of the students choose 5-6 universities to apply. Many of the students that went through our program were accepted to 2 or 3 universities. This leaves them with the happy choice of selecting the one that is most suitable for the student.