On 25 May 1946, the Preparatory Committee was formed by the founding universities. In July 1946, the university was established by order of the interim
People's Committee of North Korea (ordinance No. 40). In 1948, four university faculties (Faculty of Engineering, Transportation Engineering, Faculty of Agriculture, Faculty of Medicine) were separated from Kim Il Sung University to form Pyongyang University of Technology (currently
Kim Chaek University of Technology),
Wonsan University of Agriculture, Pyongyang Medical College, and the Pyongyang University of Architecture. During the
Korean War, the university was located at Baeksong-ri under Mount Jamo in Suncheon-gun, which was far from the centre of the city. By late 1955, the reconstruction of the main building on the Pyongyang campus was in progress and soon the university moved back to the centre of Pyongyang. After the war, Kim Il Sung University became known as a hotbed of intellectual dissent. Academics supported more intellectual freedoms than Kim loyalists, and disadvantageous factions within the
Workers' Party of Korea were over-represented in university staff. Following the
Revolutions of 1956 in Hungary and
in Poland, North Korean exchange students were quickly repatriated from the affected countries. The students started asking "improper" questions on campus, causing alarm. After that, up to one hundred students and several prominent staff members were purged. The purging of the university gave further impetus to purges against functionalists all over the country. By the end of 1970s more than 50,000 students had graduated from the university. In addition, the university was an important asset for the
Korean People's Army to train its personnel. Beginning in the 1970s, some English-medium programs have been taught at the university. Until 2004,
Pak Kwan-o, an authority on nuclear physics and the
Chairman of the Pyongyang City People's Committee (synonymous with mayor), had been serving as the president for 17 years. According to the university's website, the current president is Kim Sung Chan who was appointed in 2021. In May 2010, Pyongyang Medical College, Sariwon Kye Ung Sang Agricultural College and Pyongyang Agricultural College became members of the Kim Il Sung University Council. Those three institutions were later removed in October 2019. According to
Korean Central Television, North Korean students can take classes at and download lectures from Kim Il Sung University via the
Mirae WiFi network, beginning in 2018. ==International students==