President urges measures to fix historical distortions

President Park Geun-hye expressed her dismay at “distorted” history education on Monday, signaling for tough measures against the leftist teachers’ union.

She criticized the result of a controversial survey on students’ perception of the start of the Korean War (1950-53).

In the poll conducted by a newspaper, 506 high school students were asked whether the war was triggered by “buk-chim” (invasion by the South) or “nam-chim” (invasion by the North).

Of them, 349 students or 69 percent picked “buk-chim,” running counter to what they learn in school textbooks. The credibility of the survey was in doubt because students may have misunderstood the meanings of the terms.

“Distorting truths or history should never happen in education fields and it definitely needs to be corrected,” Park said at a meeting of senior secretaries at Cheong Wa Dae.

“Teachers will have their own educational philosophies … However, any distortion of history and truth should not be tolerated.”

Such miseducation weakens fundamental values and national pride that growing children need to have, and distorts sacrifices of patriots who risked their lives for the country, she said.

The president called for the government to take action to fix the problems.

Her secretaries were directed to go through all the drawbacks in education and come up with measures to ensure accurate history education for students, her aides said.

By Lee Hyun-jeong  (rene@heraldcorp.com)