In announcing the reintroduction of state-written history textbooks starting in 2017 — state-authored history books were imposed in 1974 during the time of President Park Chung-hee, father of President Park Geun-hye, and state-reviewed textbooks were revived in 2011 — the Education Ministry said that the move was necessary as the current textbooks contain numerous factual errors and offer mostly leftist perspectives of history.
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. In fact, if the Education Ministry had done a proper job of reviewing history textbooks in the first place, the whole issue of state history textbooks may never have been raised.
How is the Education Ministry to be trusted with publishing “correct” and “balanced” history textbooks when it is not competent enough to conduct a thorough review of ones written independently? Even if we allow that the Education Ministry will somehow suddenly become competent, it faces many hurdles.
First of all, there is the question of who will write these textbooks. The government said it would recruit a pool of 20-40 scholars from various fields, including history, sociology and economics. However, with much of academia opposing the return to state-written history textbooks, it will prove to be difficult to get highly qualified experts on board. Professors from Seoul National University, Korea University and Yonsei University had already declared their opposition to state-written history textbooks well before the Education Ministry’s announcement. On Tuesday, Yonsei University history professors issued a statement declaring that none of them would participate in the project.
Secondly, the Education Ministry will be working against a very tight schedule and will be forced to rush in getting the textbooks ready by March 2017. As with any group effort, the project will require discussions, debates and adjustments before the actual compilation can even begin. Needless to say, a year is hardly sufficient to produce “accurate” and “balanced” history textbooks. Even the state-reviewed textbooks, found to have numerous inaccuracies, were completed in two years. In the rush, the ministry is also foregoing pilot introduction in select schools.
Skeptics point out that the state-authored history textbooks are being hurried so that they will begin to be used during Park’s term in office. Indeed, it was Park who initiated the call for the reintroduction of state history textbooks in June 2013. There are many who believe that her push for state history textbooks is personally motivated by the desire to rewrite the legacy of her father. Aware of such criticisms, Education Minister Hwang Woo-yea explicitly said that it was not the goal of the state history textbooks to glorify the late Park’s authoritarian regime.
A year is not enough time to write a high-quality history textbook. If offering “accurate” and “balanced” history textbooks is the aim of the administration, it should give ample time for the project so that the final products can become highly respected textbooks that will be used for years to come, not shoddy pieces that will be forced out of the classrooms when governments change hands.
