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The Materials Science and Technology Faculty of Kim Chaek University of Technology has a class in which all students published valuable scientific papers in authoritative international academic journals last year.

They are children of ordinary factory and office workers, who were enrolled at the prestigious university of the country four years ago thanks to the socialist free education system.

As they entered the university, they were full of eagerness to become scientific and technological talents of the country.

All of them studied hard, helping and leading one another, and soon they became a top-honour class of the university.

“At that time, the students set it as their next goal to become a class of scientific search prize winners, but I was not satisfied with that. Hoping that they could be sci-tech talents competing with the world, I recommended publishing papers in authoritative international academic journals,” said Sim Kyong Ho, the lecturer in charge of the class.

However, the students did not readily accept his recommendation.

For them who had just learned the basic knowledge of their major field, it seemed like a matter of distant future to publish an essay even in a domestic publication.

Recalling those days, student Kim Il Hyok said that Sim told them that they could not pride themselves on being masters of the era of change when innovations are being made day by day if they, who should shoulder the future of the country, made such slow progress and that students must have an ambition and courage to compete with the world with their brains.

Greatly impressed by Sim’s words, the students applied themselves to writing papers to be published in international academic journals in order to defend the dignity of the Korean youth.

However, the road of quest was not smooth.

They had to study the preceding literature, collect necessary data for writing the papers and make up for their lack of knowledge.

Yet, all these had to be done between lectures and revision and their mental and physical burden was being stretched to the limit.

What was engraved in their mind in those days was the idea that the campus was also an arena for demonstrating the dignity and might of the country to the world and that everyone in the campus could neither flinch nor give up as it is the honour of the country that they uphold.

Officials and lecturers of the university gave them great encouragement.

They told the students that the world gets to know about the ability of Korean students and the national power of the DPRK through authoritative international academic journals.

After two years of painstaking efforts, all students of the class produced cutting-edge scientific research achievements and published several papers in international academic journals.

“Whenever we receive positive comments on our papers from other countries, we feel the pride and joy of having added lustre to the honour of the country. Such success would have been unthinkable without the ambition to glorify the country filling the hearts of all of us,” said Kim Il Hyok.

With the enthusiasm to contribute to the prosperity of the country with great sci-tech knowledge, they are now making a dash toward a higher goal.