school) for ages six to nine, and six years of senior middle school (secondary school) for ages ten to fifteen. There are two years of kindergarten, for children aged four to six, only the second year (upper level kindergarten) is compulsory. In the mid-1980s, there were 9,530 primary and secondary schools. After graduating from people's school, students enter either a regular secondary school or a special secondary school that concentrates on music, art, or foreign languages. These schools teach both their specialties and general subjects. The Mangyongdae Revolutionary Institute where the children of the North Korean elite are prepared for service as officers in the Korean People's Army is an important special school where modern training in economics and computers is stressed as is the Kang Pan-sok Revolutionary School. In senior middle schools, politically oriented subjects, including the "Great Kim Il-sung" and "Communist Morality" as well as "Communist Party Policy," comprise 5.8 percent of instruction. Social education Outside the formal structure of schools and classrooms is "social education." This education includes extracurricular activities, family life, and the range of human relationships in North Korean society. Attention is paid to the influence of the social environment on the growing child and its role in the development of his or her character. The idea of social education is to provide a carefully controlled environment in which children are insulated from unplanned influences. According to a North Korean official interviewed in 1990, "School education is not enough to turn the rising generation into men of knowledge, virtue, and physical fitness. After school, our children have many spare hours. So it's important to efficiently organize their afterschool education." In his 1977 Theses on Socialist Education, Kim Il Sung described the components of social education. In the Korean Children's Union and the Socialist Patriotic Youth League, young people learn the nature of collective and organizational life in North Korea. Some prepare for membership in the Korean Workers' Party. In students' and schoolchildren's halls and palaces, managed by the youth league central committee, young people participate in many extracurricular activities after school. There are cultural facilities such as libraries and museums, monuments and historical sites of the Korean revolution, and mass media dedicated to serving the goals of social education. Huge, lavishly appointed "schoolchildren's palaces" with gymnasiums and theaters have been built in Pyongyang, Mangyongdae, and other sites. The palaces provide political lectures and seminars, debating