The Most Amazing Snapshots of Education Around the World

Two little girls walk to school in North Korea. This photo was taken in Pyongyang, the country's capital, on May 2, 2007. 

The Associated Press reported that in Pyongyang, learning to hate Americans starts as early as kindergarten. In fact, the AP reports, it "is as much a part of the curriculum as learning to count." The principal of an elementary school told journalists that "Our children learn from an early age about the American bastards." They do so by having the kids practice beating a dummy of an American soldier with batons.

In September 2012, North Korean leaders announced they would be making positive changes to the country's education system. Despite any advancements, the learned hatred will likely continue.

Photo: Nora Stribrna/Reuters

In a remote Miao village in the Guizhou province of southwest China, children attend a class inside a huge cave. The Middle Cave elementary school, which has 194 students in five classes, was built inside the natural cave by Miao families who have lived there for more than half a century. Most students must walk for one to three hours on a stone path to get to the school every morning.

Learning in villages such as this is seen as an opportunity, not a requirement, for many children. Accross the world, UNESCO estimates that 61 million children will never receive an education, with the majority of these children being girls.

(Photo: China Daily/Reuters)

Students exercise during a ballet class at the Vietnam Dancing School in Hanoi on August 30, 2007. Hanoi is a city that is rich in culture and the arts. Schools such as this one give children the opportunity to learn more than reading, writing, and arithmetic.

Photo: Kham/Reuters

Talibes, or Islamic students, learn Arabic script at a Koranic school in Pikine, on the outskirts of Dakar, Senegal, on May 7, 2008. Often runaways, Talibes beg on the streets, collecting alms for a marabout (a religious leader) in return for food, accommodation, and Koranic learning as part of Senegal's Mouride sect of Islam.

(Photo: Finbarr O'Reilly/Reuters)

In Managua, the capital city of Nicaragua, a girl writes on a chalkboard during the opening of the elementary school year in the city's old center. The school year in Nicaragua starts in February and runs through November. The male literacy rate (ages 15-24) is 85 percent and the female literacy rate (ages 15-24) is 89 percent. Photo taken on February 4, 2008.

(Photo: Oswaldo Rivas/Reuters)