The purpose of this study is to review changing situations in North Korean education in the 2000s in terms of its policies and actual conditions. Despite the problems in education such as the destruction of infrastructure, crippled operation of school classes, and the downfall of teachers' authority as a consequence of economic difficulty during mid-1990s, North Korea put spurs to the normalization of public education from the beginning of 2000. To overcome its economic hardship and promote national development, North Korea has adopted 'utilitarianism in education' as core strategy in education system. This 'utilitarianism in education' is a sort of theory of education for development. The measures to improve quality of education and sharpen the competitiveness, as well as to cultivate a competent person in scientific and technical education and information technology in particular have been taken. This strategy includes picking out and cultivating gifted children in secondary and higher education. As a result, while investment for national education has been made to education for gifted children in scientific and technical area, large part of public education expenses once fully provided by the North Korean government before the economic difficulty have started to be covered by parents. These expenses for public education include purchasing textbooks, teaching aids and equipments as well as those required for maintaining school facilities. In addition to this, private education emerges as drastic change in education. Transforming the existing education policy to education for gifted children and the expansion of private sectors have halved ideological effects of free education, which has been continued effectively for a long time. At the same time, this has also brought 'unintended results' in that it halves learning desire and education quality in ordinary school students.