university
A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...
-level
miscellaneous school
A miscellaneous school is a classification of schools under the education laws of Japan and South Korea.
Japan
Overview
''Kakushu gakkō'' (), sometimes translated as "miscellaneous vocational school", is a classification of schools in Japan, es ...
located in
Kodaira
is a city located in the western portion of the Tokyo Metropolis, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 195,207 in 93,654 households, and a population density of 9500 persons per km2. The total area of the city was .
Geography
Kodai ...
,
Tokyo
Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...
. It was established by the
North Korea
North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders China and Russia to the north at the Yalu River, Yalu (Amnok) an ...
-affiliated organization
Chongryon
The General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, " ''
on 10 April 1956.
Korean
Korean may refer to:
People and culture
* Koreans, people from the Korean peninsula or of Korean descent
* Korean culture
* Korean language
**Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Korean
**Korean dialects
**See also: North–South differences in t ...
is the
medium of instruction
A medium of instruction (plural: media of instruction, or mediums of instruction) is a language used in teaching. It may or may not be the official language of the country or territory. If the first language of students is different from the offic ...
.
Description
It operates eight four-year faculties:
* Political Economy
**
Political Economy
Political or comparative economy is a branch of political science and economics studying economic systems (e.g. Marketplace, markets and national economies) and their governance by political systems (e.g. law, institutions, and government). Wi ...
**
Jurisprudence
Jurisprudence, also known as theory of law or philosophy of law, is the examination in a general perspective of what law is and what it ought to be. It investigates issues such as the definition of law; legal validity; legal norms and values ...
* Literature and History
**
Korean Language
Korean is the first language, native language for about 81 million people, mostly of Koreans, Korean descent. It is the national language of both South Korea and North Korea. In the south, the language is known as () and in the north, it is kn ...
and
Literature
Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, Play (theatre), plays, and poetry, poems. It includes both print and Electroni ...
**
History
History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...
and
Geography
Geography (from Ancient Greek ; combining 'Earth' and 'write', literally 'Earth writing') is the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. Geography is an all-encompassing discipline that seeks an understanding o ...
*
Business
Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or Trade, buying and selling Product (business), products (such as goods and Service (economics), services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for ...
* Foreign Languages
**
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Culture, language and peoples
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
* ''English'', an Amish ter ...
**
Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
*Science and Technology
**Science with majors in
Mathematics
Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...
,
Physics
Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...
,
Chemistry
Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a physical science within the natural sciences that studies the chemical elements that make up matter and chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules a ...
, and
Biology
Biology is the scientific study of life and living organisms. It is a broad natural science that encompasses a wide range of fields and unifying principles that explain the structure, function, growth, History of life, origin, evolution, and ...
**
Electronics
Electronics is a scientific and engineering discipline that studies and applies the principles of physics to design, create, and operate devices that manipulate electrons and other Electric charge, electrically charged particles. It is a subfield ...
and
Informatics
Informatics is the study of computational systems. According to the Association for Computing Machinery, ACM Europe Council and Informatics Europe, informatics is synonymous with computer science and computing as a profession, in which the centra ...
*Education
**Education with majors in
Language
Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...
,
Maths
Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, theories and theorems that are developed and proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many areas of mathematics, which include num ...
,
Social Studies
In many countries' curricula, social studies is the combined study of humanities, the arts, and social sciences, mainly including history, economics, and civics. The term was coined by American educators around the turn of the twentieth century as ...
, and
Science
Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...
**
Nursing
Nursing is a health care profession that "integrates the art and science of caring and focuses on the protection, promotion, and optimization of health and human functioning; prevention of illness and injury; facilitation of healing; and alle ...
**
Music Education
Music education is a field of practice in which educators are trained for careers as primary education, elementary or secondary education, secondary music teachers, school or music conservatory ensemble directors. Music education is also a rese ...
**
Art Education
Visual arts education is the area of learning that is based upon the kind of art that one can see, visual arts—drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, and design in jewelry, pottery, weaving, fabrics, etc. and design applied to more practi ...
*
Physical Education
Physical education is an academic subject taught in schools worldwide, encompassing Primary education, primary, Secondary education, secondary, and sometimes tertiary education. It is often referred to as Phys. Ed. or PE, and in the United Stat ...
The university also operates a two-year faculty with courses in accounting and social care, and a post-graduate school.
This school offers a university level education, but based on the Japanese School Education Law, it is not authorized as a “university” and consequently it is treated as a "miscellaneous school.”
History
The school was first established by
Chongryon
The General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, " ''
on 10 April 1956. When Chongryon first sought approval to establish the school, it faced backlash from both the Japanese right-wing and South Korea. North Korea has influenced the school's textbooks and curriculum since its establishment.
The school has received funding directly from the
government of North Korea
A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state.
In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...
every year since 1956. Between 1956 and 1958, the North Korean government paid ¥321.6 million to purchase the real estate for the school and set up its curriculum. In 2002, it received ¥132.42 million in funding at the direction of then North Korean leader
Kim Jong Il
Kim Jong Il (born Yuri Kim; 16 February 1941 or 1942 – 17 December 2011) was a North Korean politician who was the second Supreme Leader (North Korean title), supreme leader of North Korea from Death and state funeral of Kim Il Sung, the de ...
.
After graduation, most students either go on to work for Chongryon or become teachers at Chongryon-affiliated schools. , the school's rector is Chang Byong Tae, a graduate of
Kyoto University
, or , is a National university, national research university in Kyoto, Japan. Founded in 1897, it is one of the former Imperial Universities and the second oldest university in Japan.
The university has ten undergraduate faculties, eighteen gra ...
and a former researcher in
solid-state chemistry
Solid-state chemistry, also sometimes referred as materials chemistry, is the study of the Chemical synthesis, synthesis, structure, and properties of solid phase materials. It therefore has a strong overlap with solid-state physics, mineralogy, cr ...
with the
French National Centre for Scientific Research
The French National Centre for Scientific Research (, , CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe.
In 2016, it employed 31,637 staff, including 11,137 tenured researchers, 13,415 engi ...
.
Korea University and other Chongryon-affiliated schools have recently experienced greater difficulty in recruiting new students. This has been attributed to Japan's overall preference towards South Korea since its economic boom in the late 1980s. Correspondingly, ethnic Koreans in Japan have also increasingly aligned themselves with the South.
Analysis
Between 2018 and 2019, Cha Eun-jeong, a South Korean anthropologist from
Seoul National University
Seoul National University (SNU; ) is a public university, public research university in Seoul, South Korea. It is one of the SKY (universities), SKY universities and a part of the Flagship Korean National Universities.
The university's main c ...
, was allowed to visit the school a number of times. When she first visited the school, she did so without prior notice, and was turned away with the explanation that they "do not officially accept guests from the Southern side". However, she was eventually allowed to visit after explaining her intention to help bridge North–South relations.
Cha estimated that the school had around 500 students that all lived in the school dormitories. She noted that the school strongly emphasized Korean national identity and community, and that teachers and students were all encouraged to develop strong personal and emotional relationships with each other.
While she noted that portraits of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il were displayed prominently in the school, she described the overall attitude of the students towards the South as being conciliatory, if not even positive. She attributed this to two reasons: firstly, the students were fourth-to-fifth generation descendants of the original Korean settlers, and thus increasingly removed from the North–South conflict. In addition, she theorized that they were following the overall Japanese zeitgeist of increasing preference towards South Korea.
See also
*
Chōsen gakkō
From 1910 to 1945, Korea was ruled by the Empire of Japan under the name Chōsen (), the Japanese reading of "Joseon".
Japan first took Korea into its sphere of influence during the late 1800s. Both Korea (Joseon
Joseon ( ; ; also romaniz ...
– North Korean primary and secondary schools in Japan