South Korean scholars boycott state-issued textbook project

The move toward state-issued textbooks is the latest in a series of efforts by conservative leaders in South Korea and Japan to shape school history books to reflect their political views, and has sparked fierce criticism from academics and opposition parties.

In announcing the controversial plans on Monday, Education Minister Hwang Woo-yea argued that the current history textbooks are too left-leaning and encourage views sympathetic to North Korea, and called for school books that are "objective" and "balanced."

Lee Shincheol, a historian at Seoul's Sungkyunkwan University and a contributing author of one of the current textbooks, said that the government's criticism makes little sense because private publishers had been required to follow editorial guidelines set by the Education Ministry and have their content reviewed by a state-run history institution.

Japan's Education Ministry last year introduced a textbook screening policy that required private publishers reflect the government's official position on contentious issues in modern history to "balance out" references to Japan's wartime aggression.