The Korean residents in Japan, who had been forcibly taken to Japan during the military rule of the Japanese imperialists, were deprived of all their rights and subjected to contempt, ill-treatment and poverty. After Korea’s liberation in August 1945, they started the national education to implant the soul of the Korean nation in the hearts of their children. But the foundation for national education was too weak.

President Kim Il Sung saw through their situation and paid close attention to developing the democratic national education of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon).

In late January Juche 46 (1957), a plenary meeting of the Cabinet discussed the State budget, in which he said in the following vein:

We must offer financial support to our compatriots, who are experiencing hardships in an alien land, so that they can educate their children. This may mean that we cannot build a few factories. And this support must not be stopped after a few rounds. We must do it as long as there are our compatriots in Japan and their children to be educated.

To this end, an unprecedented budget item “Educational aid funds and stipends for children of the Korean residents in Japan” was included in the State budget of the DPRK. On April 19 that year, Chongryon and the Korean children in Japan received the first educational aid funds and stipends, which amounted to over 120 million yen.

Chongryon and the Koreans in Japan built schools everywhere with those money and promoted the national education. They also built Korea University, the highest institute for national education, in the heart of Japan with the second installment of educational aid funds sent in October that year.

True to the ennobling intention of Kim Il Sung, Chairman Kim Jong Il always said to officials that the financial support to Chongryon was characterized differently from the investment into the fields of the national economy and stressed that they should never bargain over the issue. Even in the days of the Arduous March and forced march when the country was undergoing unprecedented trials, he took measures to keep carrying on the work.

The history of loving care of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il for Chongryon is being invariably carried forward by Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un.

Noting that Chongryon is part of the socialist country and the Koreans resident in Japan are brothers and sisters and family members of the motherland, Kim Jong Un said that he would do his best for the dignified life and bright future of Chongryon and the compatriots in Japan.

In last April, the DPRK government sent educational aid funds and stipends amounting to 216.6 million yen to Chongryon on the occasion of the 108th birth anniversary of President Kim Il Sung.