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Vice-Minister of Education Lee Yeong announces the final version of the government-issued history textbooks produced by the Park Geun-hye government

The government-issued history textbooks made by the Park Geun-hye government were made public on Jan. 31. Most of the information contained within the textbooks has not been changed from the draft versions that were pointed out by academics, teachers and civic education groups as showing certain biases, such as the glorification of the Park Chung-hee regime and the chaebol conglomerates and the minimizing of pro-Japanese factions’ activities. It seems the controversy surrounding the government-issued textbooks and designated research schools will not subside.

The final version of the textbooks was made public at a press conference held at the Government Complex Sejong by Vice-Minister of Education Lee Yeong on Jan. 31. “The compiling agency, the National Institute of Korean History, and the team of writers thoroughly reviewed the opinions of the citizens collected during the canvass, and those results are reflected in the final versions of the government-issued history textbooks,” Lee said.

Lee explained that after the release of the draft version on Nov. 28 of last year, a total of 760 issues raised by the canvass were reflected in the final version, with 310 of the issues pertaining to the middle school history textbooks and 450 pertaining to the high school Korean history textbook. The textbooks released by the Ministry of Education include middle school History 1 and History 2, and high school Korean History.

“While simple errors caught during the citizen canvassing were corrected, the contents [from the draft version] were edited and supplemented to concretely define pro-Japanese anti-national activities, strengthen the description of the Japanese army‘s sexual slavery practice and clarify the culmination of the Saemaeul [New Village] movement,” Lee said. Most of the content, however, is largely unchanged.

The contents related to the glorification of the Park Chung-hee regime (1961-79), pointed out as the biggest problem, have seen no major changes from the version made public at the review on Nov. 28. The amount of content, at nine pages, excluding an explanation of Park Chung-hee’s Yushin regime under the heading “The Chang Myon Government’s [1960-61] Economic Development Plan,” remains unchanged from the reviewed content.

While pages 263 through 271 in the high school Korean History textbook explain the Park Chung-hee administration in detail, the results achieved by Park’s Yushin regime are emphasized, giving them more weight than its dark side. Descriptions that exemplify this include, “The government held a monthly conference to expand the promotion of exports, which sought to increase exports through measures such as examining whether or not export targets were being met. As a result, exports rapidly increased to an annual average of 36% during two five-year plans for economic development,” (page 266) and, “The result of the government’s firmly rolled out export promotion policy was a 40% increase in exports per year, with the goal of US$10 billion in exports achieved,” (page 269).

On the other hand, the section that explains criticisms of the Yushin regime is brief, while the corrected issues remain the same. Under the title “The Arrival of the Yushin Regime and the Liberal Democracy Trial,” is the following explanation: “Anti-Yushin democratization demonstrations were consistently held and were suppressed by the Park Chung-hee government. While articles in the Yushin Constitution that outlined fundamental social rights, such as the nominal freedoms of the press and publishing, the right to assembly, the right to association and the three primary rights of labor, were maintained, these fundamental rights were restricted by the president’s emergency measures.”

Among the controversial points related to the Park Chung-hee administration noted in the draft version of the government-issued history textbooks, a few items were changed. While the forces that carried out the May 16 coup were originally introduced as the “Revolutionary Promise” without quotation marks, the phrase now appears in single quotation marks. To a section on page 270 about the Saemaeul movement that originally read, “It also received criticism that it was used to maintain the Yushin regime,” a prefacing passage has been added that reads, “This movement was started to develop village farming, but it was advanced as a top-down-minded reform movement.”

In the portion of the text criticized as glorifying the conglomerates, the episode about how Chung Ju-yung, chairman of the Hyundai group, borrowed money from British investment banks was left out, while content such as the following was included: “[Chung] contributed to the development of South Korea as a force in automobile production by propelling the development of the first unique domestic car model, the Pony.”

Minimizing depictions of pro-Japanese factions’ activities also remain. In the high school Korean History textbook, the phrase “pro-Japanese figures” is used instead of “pro-Japanese factions.” A portion of text that reads, “Many intellectuals, artists, religious figures and businessmen led pro-Japanese activities, including Lee Gwang-su, Park Yeong-hee, Choi Rin, Yun Chi-ho, Han Sa-ryong and Park Heung-sik,” has not been changed to outline in detail what these pro-Japanese activities were.

Only the sections about the comfort women have been slightly extended. In the middle school History 2 textbook, added content includes, “[In 2011], to commemorate the 1,000th Wednesday demonstration, a comfort woman statue of peace was set up,” and, “The Japanese army played both a direct and indirect part in the relocation of the ‘comfort women’, and it has been acknowledged (by Japan in 1993) that the Japanese military directly participated in the recruiting of the comfort women,” (page 109). A section has been added to the high school Korean History textbook that reads, “’Comfort women‘ were also collectively killed at the hands of fleeing Japanese troops after they were defeated in World War II.”

The Ministry of Education also made public a previously unreleased list of 12 people who were on the government-issued textbook publication deliberation committee. The committee, like the writing staff, was on the whole made up of mostly conservative or far-right figures, including the committee chairman, former president of Seoul National University of Education Lee Taek-hee, Northeast Asian History Foundation director Kim Ho-seop, Academy of Korean Studies director Lee Gi-dong and Myongji University professor Gang Gyu-hyeong.

By Kim Kyung-wook, staff reporter

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