Some history professors from the nation’s top college released statements on Thursday, claiming they would not write state-designed textbooks the current government is pushing for.
36 professors from Seoul National University released a statement with the topic of "SNU professors' stance on government-designated textbooks," saying that, "If the government pushes ahead with making the textbooks despite the opposition, we will not participate in any of the work."
They said, "The textbooks the government is trying to make is not suitable for the nation's status and it is not a proper textbook itself."
According to their claim, the state-designed textbooks are against the principles of history education. Also, the autonomy, specialty and neutrality of education should be guaranteed under the constitution and the push to nationalize the history textbooks is against the universal standards of the global citizens. Lastly, the aim of peaceful unification and global history education should be included in the textbook.
The scholars said, "The ruling party described the policy as something to win while describing the 90 percent of the historians (who wrote the textbooks) as the left," adding, "Currently, the teachers and professors teaching Korean history in elementary, middle and high school as well as college have long been trained within the nation's education system and they are qualified to be recognized as experts."
"Describing the historians as the left without any ground makes foreigners to misunderstand South Korea and also unsettle the democracy system."
"We will not participate in writing the government-designated textbooks and not cooperate any work related to research, consulting and deliberation," adding, "We will ramp up efforts to produce alternative history materials focusing on the principles of history education instead."
36 professors from the college's Korean history, oriental history, western history and history education joined the recent move. As a result, the number of colleges opposing the education policy increased to 62 nationwide and the number of the professors rose to 420.
Other organizations opposing the government’s current move also include the Organization of Korean Historians, the Association for Korean Modern and Contemporary History, the Korean Medieval History Society.
