hankyoreh

The Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology has told the editor of the textbook “A Modern and Contemporary History of Korea” (“Han’guk Geun Hyeondae Sa”) to appear at the ministry for a meeting. This is most unusual. There are other subjects within the “human society” (sahoe) curriculum, like geography for example, so it does not take much to guess what the meeting is going to be about.

The Education Ministry has persistently pressured textbook publishers to accommodate the demands made by the Korean Chamber of Commerce and Industry that the textbook be revised. Being “business friendly” is nice, but it is disgusting and pathetic to watch the ministry be the executioner for one of many interest groups out to rule on scholarly facts.

When the KCCI issued its opinion on school history textbooks in March, the Education Ministry told the country’s textbook publishers to submit statistical data on how much they would reflect those views in their textbooks. In May, Education Minister Kim Do-yeon started making threatening remarks about how history textbooks had taken a “left face” somewhere along the way, and this ministry had drafted proposals that would make it easier to have textbooks changed to fit the government’s appetite. One is shocked at the ignorance and venturousness that allows someone to think they can change the facts of history and social science theory and knowledge to make them more palatable to big business and those in political power.

Furthermore, the KCCI’s written opinion is such a sham, so forced, and so dyed in one ideology it’s embarrassing. It seeks to embellish colonial rule by Japan, justify compradorist acts, and praise presidents Rhee Syngman and Park Chung-hee even though they trampled all over this country’s democracy. The so-called “New Right’s alternative textbook,” the de facto source text for the chamber of commerce’s position, is wrong on the most basic of facts in approximately 40 places.

Granted, interest groups, and even individual citizens, are free to submit suggested changes to the country’s school textbooks. However, examining such positions and determining whether or not they should be adopted is something the academic community should be doing, not those with political power. Instead, the Education Ministry immediately moves to demand that textbook publishers tell it how much they are going to change so that textbooks reflect the KCCI’s position. There is not the most basic courtesy and knowledge about scholarship in general and the academic community.

Even if it were commonly said that Education Ministry officials have no souls, it would still be hard to believe that officials had taken their own initiative in pushing this shameless idea to begin with. The academic community is pointing its finger at the Blue House and Senior Presidential Secretary for Education, Science and Technology Lee Ju-ho as being behind the move. Now even the conservative teachers’ organization, the Korean Federation of Teachers’ Associations, has issued a statement calling for Lee Ju-ho’s replacement, demanding that he be held responsible for the chaos in education policy. He should also be held responsible for reducing textbooks as tools for ideological immersion.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]