N. Korea's Kim urges top university to lead building of 'powerful' country
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, center right, meets with senior officials of Kim Il Sung University in Pyongyang Wednesday, as he arrives at the school to take part in a ceremony to celebrate the North's top university's 80th founding anniversary, in this photo released by Korean Central News Agency the following day. Yonhap
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has visited Kim Il Sung University to mark its 80th founding anniversary, urging the school to help build "a powerful and prosperous" country, state media reported Thursday.
Calling the university the country's "highest dignified educational institution," Kim told the faculty and students on Wednesday that the school "should stand in the vanguard of the honorable struggle" for that goal, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.
Founded on Oct. 1, 1946, and named after Kim's grandfather and North Korea's founder, Kim Il-sung, the university is the North's first institution of higher education.
"The building of an educational power, a sci-tech power and a talent power is the three essential requirements and basic guarantee for the development of Korean-style socialism insisted by our Party at present," he said.
He described "educational development and sci-tech sovereignty" as "the most important and decisive" factors for the country's present and future.
Kim also called for a "new phase of socialist education in the new era with high and qualitative development of the university."
In addition, he urged the school to expand exchanges with "elite universities and science research institutes in other countries" as the country's "finest" educational institution.