Gov't to alter history textbook publication system

Published : Oct 11, 2015 - 22:33 Updated : Oct 11, 2015 - 22:33

The government will announce a plan to introduce state-designated history textbooks for secondary school students this week, a government official concerned with the matter said Sunday.

"The Ministry of Education will make an official announcement on the plan tomorrow," the official said, requesting not to be named.

Education minister Hwang Woo-yea will brief reporters on the government decision at 2 p.m. Monday, according to other sources.

Currently, eight private publishing companies print history textbooks after winning approval from the government for use in middle and high schools. Schools choose from any of the eight textbooks while primary schools have a single sort of state-authored history textbook.

The government has raised the need to forge a common understanding of history in a country where people are divided ideologically. But the opposition regards it as a challenge to democracy, raising concerns that state textbooks can be used by governments to indoctrinate students with their own ideological bias.

The ministry is expected to take an administrative measure to change the textbook publication system for middle and high schools on the same day. The plan, in that case, will be confirmed early next month after at least 20 days of notice.

National textbooks, if so, will go into use from the 2017 school year in middle and high schools across the country, abolishing the current publication system six years after it was fully introduced. Before, the government had been in charge of publishing history textbooks since 1974.

But the decision is expected to trigger fierce resistance from opposition political parties, left-leaning historians and educators.

The main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy already proposed the ruling Saenuri Party to conduct a parliamentary probe into the current publication system, saying that any change in the system requires a social consensus.

Meanwhile, the Saenuri Party formally demanded the government alter the system during its first-ever meeting with the education ministry to coordinate policy development on the textbook issue. (Yonhap)