Culture Ministry: "Sejong Books Lack Scoring Criteria and Score Sheets... Serious Issue"

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism pointed out serious issues in the operation of the ‘Sejong Book Selection and Purchase Support Project’ and announced plans for structural reform.

The Sejong Book Project is a government support program aimed at promoting quality book publishing and enhancing reading culture. Organized by the Korea Publication Culture Industry Promotion Agency, it selects 550 titles in the general knowledge category and 400 titles in the academic category annually, providing approximately 8.4 billion KRW in subsidies.

[Photo by Korea Publication Industry Promotion Agency]

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism revealed that its internal review of the Sejong Book Project found serious problems in the screening, evaluation, and selection processes, as well as in the composition and management of the screening committee. Although evaluation criteria such as ‘originality of planning’ and ‘content completeness’ are used, there is no scoring system or score sheet, making the process reliant on the subjective judgment of the screening committee. According to the ministry, the criteria for selecting or rejecting Sejong Book works could not be confirmed.

Ambiguous qualifications and verification of screening committee members were also pointed out as issues. The ministry criticized the vague standards for Sejong Book screening committee qualifications, such as ‘at least two years of teaching experience at the instructor level or higher,’ ‘extensive experience contributing or serializing book reviews in newspapers or magazines,’ and ‘rich knowledge and experience in academic and general knowledge fields.’ Furthermore, it stated that there is no procedure to verify these qualifications.

Minister Park Bo-gyun said, “The Sejong Book title secures a reputation for ‘quality books’ in the reading culture market, and ensuring objectivity and fairness is the starting point for this. The Korea Publication Culture Industry Promotion Agency’s negligence in this regard has been fatal and reveals serious leadership problems, making structural surgery of the project inevitable.”