Korean Academic Cites Left-Wing Bias in Textbooks

Remember, kids, distorted history texts are bad! Now that we’ve settled that, listen to what a Korean professor is saying about history texts in South Korea, before a GNP-hosted forum at which likely presidential candidate Park Geun-Hye also appeared:

A Seoul National University professor said yesterday at a political seminar that many textbooks used in primary and secondary schools here contain serious distortions and are disparaging of South Korea’s modern history. Park Hyo-chong, a professor of social studies at the university’s College of Education, was addressing a discussion hosted by the conservative Grand National Party’s Yeouido Institute.

Park claimed that some texts and history classes had forgotten to mention the Korean constitution, and accused them of “downplaying the significance” of the founding of the ROK. The claims are specific, I suppose, but I’d have found it more persuasive if he (or the reporter) had published some actual quotations, which are usually good for shock value.

The Grand National Party’s chairwoman, Park Geun-hye, complained at the seminar that the Roh administration was inculcating wrong values in Korea’s youth with bad textbooks. She also complained again about the recently revised private school law, which she said allowed the left-wing Korean Teachers and Educational Workers Union to increase its influence on what is taught in schools.

This part made me snicker:

Mr. Park said the authors of many middle and high school history textbooks had undervalued Korea’s dramatic economic growth during the Park Chung Hee administration while stressing its authoritarian character.

Yes, we shouldn’t dwell on Park Chung Hee’s authoritarian character. Especially in front of his daughter . . . .

But, he continued, a bloody purge by Kim Il Sung of his political opponents in North Korea was justified in one textbook as “Korean-style socialism.”

God help us if this is what the next generation is learning.