North Korea has opened the 15th National Conference of Teachers in Pyongyang, with leader Kim Jong-un stressing the importance of education and touting teachers' role in advancing it, state media reported Thursday. In his opening address a day earlier, Kim called education "the most important state affair that cannot and should not lag behind the work of any other fields" and praised teachers as "patriots" at the forefront of raising the country's next generation. North Korea held the teachers' conference for the first time since February 2019. Kim singled out members of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, or Chongryon, thanking them for serving as "champions of the right to national education" who have raised the community's youth "in the alien land" through patriotic devotion. He described the education sector as standing at a critical juncture, noting changes in recent years to its system, content and environment, a shift he called nothing short of "a revolution." "I reaffirm that education is the most important state affair and educators should be held in higher este