By Jung Min-ho



Joo Kyeong-bae, 45, learned English expressions like "put your hands up" and "you're surrounded" with images of "bad" American soldiers during middle school classes in North Korea.



When he defected with his family in 2008, he soon realized that the level of English education here was much higher than that of the North.



Furthermore, he came to know that English proficiency is essential to surviving here.



Now, Joo is concerned about the future of his daughter, who is trying to get into college in Seoul after spending her childhood, the critical period for language learning, in the North.



"She had to learn English all over again," Joo told The Korea Times. "The English she learned in the North was not up to elementary level and it was very different."



They are not the only North Koreans struggling with the same issue in the South.



According to a job-seeking support center for North Koreans, three of four North Korean defectors, who go to colleges in the South, do not have authorized English test scores such as TOEIC and TOEFL, which is a critical part of almost any job application here.



For those North Koreans that do have test scores, the average TOEIC score is a mere 658, about 250 points lower than what is considered high enough to apply for "good" jobs in the South.



Among 102 participants who responded to the survey from July 18 to Aug. 2, only two had a score above 800 and no one scored higher than 900.



Joo, who graduated from a middle school in 1983, said he only had five English classes for a week with a North Korean teacher whose English was not much better than his.



"In high school, I learned stories like a black boy encountering racial discrimination in the United States. That was my conversational English class. The school used English classes mostly to teach us the dark side of American culture and history," he said.



Other than the fact that North Korean students now learn English from the fourth grade in an elementary school, he said, there has been little change in the content and quality.



"Only a small number of the elite students receive special English education. But I was not one of them," he noted.



Despite the South Korean government's efforts to help the defectors adapt to its society, a vast majority of them struggle badly with English.



The government has offered piecemeal steps over the last decade that evolved into a full-fledged affirmative action program, which gives North Koreans the chance to bypass the notorious national college entrance exams to enter top schools.



Yet many North Koreans find themselves dropping out of the schools, struggling especially with the required English courses.



Choi Kyeong-il, director of the support center, said a lack of English education for them makes it more difficult for North Korean job-seekers, who are already fighting against prejudice and discrimination in the labor market.



"If the government and colleges want to help them get a job, they need to develop an English education program for them," Choi said. "In the bigger picture, they also have to think about how to help them truly be part of our society, which is supposed to be the ultimate goal of affirmative action."



