South Korea’s new President Moon Jae-in has scrapped state-issued school history textbooks introduced by his ousted predecessor, saying they represented an “outdated and one-sided” view of the past, his office said….
South Korea’s new President Moon Jae-in has scrapped state-issued school history textbooks introduced by his ousted predecessor, saying they represented an “outdated and one-sided” view of the past, his office said. The decision erases a key policy of impeached conservative predecessor Park Geun-hye.. Moon’s order to the education ministry was based on his “firm will” that history education should not be politicised, the presidential Blue House said. Many historians and teachers had opposed Park’s plan to introduce textbooks edited by the government at primary and secondary schools, seeing it as an attempt to whitewash the brutal dictatorships that preceded the country’s democratic transition during the late 1980s – including that of her father. “As efforts to normalise history education, the president has ordered the abolition of state-authored textbooks, ” said top presidential spokesman Yoon Young-chan. “State-issued history textbooks are a symbol of the rigid history education of the past and also represent a type of education that divides people by forcing them to take sides, ” presidential spokesman Yoon Young-chan said on Friday. Strong resistance to Park’s plan forced her government to delay introduction of the textbooks from 2017 to 2018. The education ministry, which initially said schools would be forced to use the new state-issued textbooks, took a softer turn in January, saying schools would continue to have the freedom to use textbooks by private publishers after 2018. The ministry’s change in stance came amid rising public anger over the corruption scandal involving Park.
