Meanwhile, the adoption rate for a right-wing history textbook by the publisher Ikuhosha is up to 6.2% this year from 4% four years ago.
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By 2017, The Correct History Textbook will be the only history book allowed in South Korea’s high schools.
“The government will write history textbooks based on objective facts so that the youth can have balanced view of history”, said the minister.
Last month, more than 1,000 historians and scholars supported a statement opposing the shift back to government control, fearing the state can not be relied upon to provide an unbiased assessment of key events – from Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule to the 1950-53 Korean War and beyond. The 66-year-old retired high school teacher has always been part of the campaign in Japan to oppose government involvement in textbooks.
Preparations are under way for the project, and detailed plans on guidelines and the time frame for writing and publishing the book will be set this week, according to an institute official. There are now concerns that the Park Geun-hye administration’s state Korean history textbook designation decision could deal a heavy blow to the country’s hard-won standing on the global stage.
But the decision is drawing fierce protests from opposition political parties, historians and educators.
South Korea’s leading opposition party, the New Politics Alliance for Democracy, criticized government-issued texts as a tool of dictatorships and developing nations, calling for work on the books to be halted.
“The party will not cooperate in setting a budget for the state-published textbooks”, said Rep. Choi Jae-cheon of the NPAD during a party meeting. “The party will achieve victory in next year’s general elections and pass the law banning this history textbook”. All members of the National Assembly will come up for reelection, with the race acting partly as a referendum on Park’s success during her first three years in office.
It will mean the contents of the textbook can be changed to suit the state’s taste, said Han Sang-kwon, a professor of history at the Duksung Women’s University. “It makes little sense to argue for a free democracy and then create a uniform history textbook”.
New so-called “Accurate History Textbooks” will replace the current crop, which were described by ruling Saenuri Party policy chief Kim Jung-hoon over the weekend as “spoiling the authenticity and identity of our constitution with anti-South Korea and anti-United States but pro-North Korea connotations”. “The only countries in the world that issue textbooks under a state designation system are North Korea, Bangladesh, and a few Islamic states”, Bang said.
The textbooks will be written under government supervision and control, and are thought likely to cast the country’s former military governments in a more positive light, highlighting their contributions to economic and other development.
Since the Education Ministry is responsible for reviewing history textbooks, the ministry should take responsibility for sanctioning the textbooks with inaccuracies and ideologically biased views.
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We do not feel the need to enumerate the countless problems and disadvantages of state textbooks.
