The education minister said Wednesday the authority will review a controversial high school textbook criticized by opposition lawmakers and left-leaning historians for containing a conservative bias, along with seven other new textbooks, and revise them if necessary.
"We will, by late October, modify and supplement eight types of high school history textbooks that were approved by the National Institute of Korean History on Aug. 30," Seo Nam-soo said in a press conference at the ministry in Seoul.
For the possible modification, the ministry will conduct an in-depth review of the textbooks jointly with the history institute, Seo said.
The decision came after a group of opposition lawmakers made a protest visit to the ministry, demanding a withdrawal of state approval of the textbook authored by right-leaning historians.
During the visit, Rep. Yoo Ki-hong and seven other lawmakers of the main opposition Democratic Party claimed the textbook contained factual errors and had plagiarized material from the Internet.
"The textbook not only glorifies dictatorship but also reflects Japan's perspective better than" Japanese textbooks, Yoo told reporters after meeting with Seo. "These (problems) can't be resolved by correction, and (the government) must withdraw (the
textbook) in line with standing regulations."
Yoo especially noted, among other examples, that the textbook describes the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima as an "assault,"
apparently alluding to the U.S. as being the aggressor against Japan during World War II.
Some left-leaning historians have claimed that the textbook gives the impression that Korea was dependent on China, Japan and the United States over the course of its history, and glorifies the authoritarian regimes of former leaders Rhee Syng-man and Park Chung-hee, the late father of current President Park Geun-hye. (Yonhap News)
