hankyoreh

in front of the statue of Admiral Yi Sun-sin

On Apr. 20, 1973, the administration of President Park Chung-hee announced that it would take over the production of Korean history textbooks. 42 years later, on Oct. 10, 2015, the government of President Park Geun-hye announced that it would switch from government approval of Korean history textbooks to issuing them directly.

Korean history textbooks had undergone a review and approval process before 1974, when they began to be issued by the government. This continued until 2011, when the government reverted to the approval process. But starting in 2017 - only six years after converting to the approval process - these textbooks will be issued by the government once more, just as under the 1974 system.

Thus, South Korea will join a small group of countries whose governments have chosen to issue history textbooks themselves, including North Korea and Bangladesh.

On Oct. 12, Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister Hwang Woo-yeo and Kim Jeong-bae, director of the National Institute of Korean History held a press conference at the Government Complex in Sejong. “Starting with middle school and high school students in 2017, the South Korean government has decided to issue its own history textbooks to establish a correct and balanced historical perspective that is based on objective facts and faithful to constitutional values,” Hwang and Kim said.

On Monday, the Ministry of Education announced its proposed changes to the textbook system, which would give the government complete control over history textbooks for middle school students and Korean history textbooks for high school students, which are currently approved after government review.

This came one year and eight months after President Park instructed officials to “find ways to improve the system by developing history textbooks that are balanced and fact-based” during a briefing by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Sports, Culture and Tourism on Feb. 13, 2014. On Monday, Park did not make any comments about the policy change.

During the press conference on Monday, Hwang defended the legitimacy of state-issued textbooks by stating that “a country in which the public remembers history differently has only division in its future.” However, opposition to state-issued textbooks has been growing stronger recently, creating the real possibility that state-issued textbooks might only exacerbate the split in public opinion.

Since switching to an approval system in 2011, the government has continued to increase the percentage of textbooks it approves under the policy framework of giving textbook makers more autonomy. 85% of textbooks that were submitted for the 2015 revised curriculum were approved.

But the Ministry of Education made clear that it means to make history an exception to this emphasis on autonomy. “History textbooks have caused problems in society since the approval system was introduced, leading to unending controversy over bias and factual errors,” the Ministry said.

“Since the introduction of the approval system, history textbooks have continued to provoke ideological debate and accusations of bias without unifying the public or contributing to the formation of a balanced historical attitude and a healthy view of the state that is grounded in constitutional values and liberal democracy. We have worked hard to correct a variety of factual errors and bias in order to provide schools with textbooks that establish correct historical values, but there are fundamental limitations that have prompted us to make the switch to state-issued textbooks,” Hwang said.

The Ministry of Education argues that, even when it has instructed textbook writers to make changes in keeping with the legal protocol, some writers have refused to do so and repeatedly filed lawsuits, creating social confusion.

The National Institute of Korean History, the government agency that will be in charge of producing textbooks, did not exclude the possibility of assigning history textbooks to scholars in other areas of study, given the high likelihood that most history scholars will refuse to write a state-issued textbook, regardless of their political affiliation.

“For modern and contemporary history, we will set up a team of writers that includes not only historians but also scholars of political history, economic history, and society and culture as a whole,” Institute Director Kim Jeong-bae said during the press conference.

“In its announcement about the 2015 revised curriculum, the Park administration said that the key of the revised curriculum is creativity and capability and that the goal of history education is to teach the diversity of interpretation. To say that and then to tell students to accept the single interpretation that they are given is contradictory,” said Kim Han-jong, professor of history education at the Korea National University of Education, in response to Monday‘s announcement.

“The government taking control of Korean history textbooks represents a very severe reversal of Korean democracy and history education. Instead of teaching the universal and diverse values that are appropriate for the age of globalization, the government is trying to unilaterally inculcate students with statism and anti-Communism,” said Kim Yuk-hun, director of the History Education Research Institute.

In related news, the New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD) submitted a bill to the National Assembly on Monday calling for the resignation of Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister Hwang Woo-yeo.

“Despite opposition from the academy, parents, and civic groups, Hwang pushed through the plan for the state to issue Korean history textbooks, provoking conflict and division in Korean society. He is no longer qualified to serve as a minister,” the NPAD said in the bill.

After 24 hours pass following the bill’s presentation to the general meeting of the National Assembly, it will be automatically scrapped unless it is adopted within 72 hours.

By Jeon Jung-yoon and Lee Se-young, staff reporters

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