History curriculum trying to “turn back the clock”

Posted on : 2015-10-03 17:41 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
Scholars speak out against Park administration’s attempts to control terms of historical education
 Sep. 9. (by Kim Bong-kyu
Sep. 9. (by Kim Bong-kyu

“The amended history curriculum for 2015 is the product of voluntary, active, and repeated government collusion with the New Right from the Lee Myung-bak administration in 2011 to the Park Geun-hye administration this year.”

 Han Sang-kweon had forceful words for the new history education curriculum while speaking at the National Assembly Members’ Hall in Seoul’s Yeouido neighborhood on Oct. 2. The Duksung Women’s University professor, who serves as standing representative for the Network Opposing Korean History Textbook National Designation, was attending an emergency debate that day on the current controversy over the 2015 revised history curriculum and national textbook designation.

According to Han, the administration’s goal in introducing nationally designated textbooks is to “distort a disadvantageous past and monopolize history education in order to seize power in the future.” The debate was organized by the network, which brings together various history and education groups, and the opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy’s special committee to prevent Korean history textbook national designation, chaired by lawmaker Do Jong-hwan.

 Participants in the debate shared especially deep concerns over the new history curriculum’s claims about the Republic of Korea’s founding in 1948, as stated in the middle school textbook “History” and the high school textbook “Korean History.” While he was unable to attend personally, former National Institute of Korean History director Lee Man-yeol sent a written commentary in which he noted that the date of Aug. 15, 1948, which had previously been established as the founding date of the Republic of Korea’s government, was listed in the newly announced plan as “the founding date of the Republic of Korea.”

 “This can only be viewed as deliberate disregard for the founding of the Republic of Korea based on the nationwide March 1 Revolution,” Lee concluded. Lee also referred to historical remarks made by the late Korean Empire independence activist Shin Chae-ho. “After seeing at a serious of education policies by the Korean Empire’s education ministry that were aimed at cultivating docile subjects, Shin denounced the ministry as ‘ruinous for the nation,’” Lee wrote. “Seeing the [current] Ministry of Education’s distortion measures, I was reminded once again of [Shin’s] ‘ruinous ministry’ remarks,’” he added.

 Debate participants also remarked that the curriculum review process seemed to have been conducted in a hasty and slapdash manner according to what they called a “plan for collaboration” by the administration and New Right forces. “If you look at the membership of the educational curriculum review committee -- whose activities are the most crucial procedure in establishing an educational curriculum -- it had professions and parent group representatives representing a far-right standpoint,” noted Kim Yuk-hun, a history teacher and director of the Institute of History Education.

“Even that committee met only once ten days before the educational curriculum was announced, leaving the whole matter tarnished with questions about the biased membership and hasty review process,” he added. Kim also noted that some attendees at Aug. 5 and Aug. 19 advisory meetings developed writing guidelines that repeatedly called for replacing references to “the founding of the Republic of Korea government” with “the founding of the Republic of Korea.”

“I cannot shake the sense that the writing standards were subject to prior censorship by New Right figures just before they were presented at the hearing,” Kim said. “In contrast, groups that might have represented historians or the history education community were not asked to take part in the plan’s review process. The Ministry of Education did not even agree to dialogue with historian and history education groups,” he continued.

 The circumstances have led some to conclude that the Korean history textbook national designation effort can be understood as part of a “pan-governmental effort under the Park Geun-hye administration to turn back the clock on history.”

“What stands out with the Park administration is a trend toward official whitewashing and praise of pro-Japanese collaborators in public areas, and state areas in particular,” said Lee Jun-sik, a research fellow at the Center for Historical Truth and Justice. “[The goal] is to legitimize a history of collaboration and dictatorship in order to hold on to vested interests,” Lee argued. “It is fundamentally impossible for a finite administration to control history education, which is infinite,” he added.

 By Um Ji-won, staff reporter

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