Editing Kim Jong-il (section)

=== Education ===
According to his official biography, Jong-il completed the course of general education between September 1950 and August 1960. He attended Primary School No. 4 and Middle School No. 1 (Namsan Higher Middle School) in Pyongyang. This is contested by foreign academics, who believe he is more likely to have received his early education in the People's Republic of China as a precaution to ensure his safety during the [[Korean War]].

Throughout his schooling, Jong-il was involved in politics. He was active in the Children's Union and the Democratic Youth League (DYL), taking part in study groups of Marxist political theory, communism, and other literature. In September 1957 he became vice-chairman of his middle school's DYL branch (the chairman had to be a teacher). He pursued a program of anti-factionalism and he tried to encourage greater ideological education among his classmates.

Jong-il is also said to have received English language education at the University of Malta in the early 1970s, on his infrequent holidays in Malta as guest of Prime Minister Dom Mintoff.<ref>[https://www.nknews.org/2014/06/kim-jong-ils-unlikely-maltese-mentor-a-secret-military-agreement/ Kim Jong Il’s unlikely Maltese mentor & a secret military agreement], ''NK News''</ref>

The elder Kim had meanwhile remarried and had another son named Kim Pyong-il (named after Jong-il's drowned brother). Since 1988, Pyong-il has served in a series of North Korean embassies in Europe and is the North Korean ambassador to Poland. Foreign commentators suspect that Pyong-il was sent to these distant posts by his father in order to avoid a power struggle between his two sons.