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| Thae Young-ho with participants at the Teach North Korean Refugees forum in Seoul on July 22. Courtesy of Casey Lartigue Jr. |
By Casey Lartigue Jr.
Thae Yong-ho, former deputy ambassador of North Korea to the United Kingdom before defecting with his family to South Korea in 2016, was the featured speaker at a Teach North Korean Refugees forum on July 22.
Near the end of the forum, he praised TNKR, discussed that he had learned the importance of North Korean refugees learning English, and mentioned the importance of offering North Korean refugees choice in education.
Thae: I happened to meet Casey on one occasion, and all of a sudden Casey gave me one small pamphlet.
I kept it in my shirt for a period of time and all of a sudden I read it and I was surprised that he founded this kind of, I think, very useful NGO network for North Korean defectors.
I learned that many North Korean young generations are in great difficulty in university education because of their English.
Of course there are many English education programs in South Korea but I think Casey's TNKR is the first one of its kind to actually provide matchmaking between the North Korean defectors and native speakers.
What I was more surprised and moved by is the TNKR's education system.
I was told that when native teachers and the North Korean defectors and the native volunteers meet each other, it is always the student's choice to choose the teacher, not the native speakers to choose.
I think that is very important because the North Korean society is based on a top-down culture.
For instance, in North Korea, even the students in university do not know how to ask a question because we were not raised to ask questions.
We were raised and educated to accept the instructions from the top, not to ask any questions.
But this time, you try to not only give English to the North Korean defectors, but also to give basic human rights to the North Korean defectors ― the rights to choose.
That is very important.
Casey Lartigue Jr., co-founder of the Teach North Korean Refugees Global Education Center, is the 2017 winner of the "Social Contribution" Prize from the Hansarang Rural Cultural Foundation and the 2017 winner of the Global Award from Challenge Korea. He was the MC of the "Understanding North Korea" forum on July 22 at which Thae Yong-ho was the featured speaker.
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