NORTH KOREA’S POSSIBLE COLLAPSE

IN SOUTH KOREA, CONCERN OVER THE NORTH'S POSSIBLE COLLAPSE

Tom Lasseter

The Miami Herald, December 19, 2010

As politicians and analysts argue about the health of Kim Jong Il and his totalitarian regime in North Korea, Woo Kee-sup is troubled by a more basic concern - if the North were to fall, how many of its 24 million residents would be ready to live in a modern society?

Running a small private school that works with North Korean defectors in their teens and 20s, Woo has a firsthand look at students produced by the educational system in the Hermit Kingdom, and the news isn't good, he says.

"Some of them have graduated from high school in North Korea, but their learning capacity is very poor," said Woo, a 64-year-old retired technology executive. "In some cases, we start out teaching them at the elementary school level."

Although the Yeomyung School that Woo heads near central Seoul offers just a snapshot of the issue, it's a worrying reminder for South Korean leadership that should the North collapse, millions of undereducated, traumatized and malnourished North Koreans might come flooding across the border.

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