School Adopting Textbook Controversial for 'Pro-Japanese Collaboration' Defense Was a Private High School Affiliated with the Author

It has been reported that one of the two schools that adopted the Korean history textbooks from the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation, which faced controversy over right-wing bias, is a private high school located in Gyeongbuk. This school is where one of the textbook authors is affiliated.

According to the status of high school Korean history textbook adoption submitted by the offices of 17 city and provincial education offices nationwide to the office of Go Min-jeong, a member of the National Assembly's Education Committee from the Democratic Party of Korea, as of 6 p.m. the previous day, among 2,098 high schools nationwide that adopted the '2022 Revised Curriculum Korean History' textbooks, high schools in Gyeonggi and Gyeongbuk adopted the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation's 'Korean History 1 and 2' textbooks.

The high school in Gyeongbuk is the school to which a teacher who authored the textbook belongs.

Korean History 1 by the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation covers pre-modern history and the opening of ports, while Korean History 2 deals with modern and contemporary history. After the release of the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation's Korean history textbooks, they were criticized for defending pro-Japanese figures and downplaying the issue of Japanese military 'comfort women.' The textbooks referred to victims of the Jeju 4.3 Incident and the Yeosu-Suncheon October 19 Incident as 'rebels,' but this expression was deleted following controversy.

The alternative school located in Yangju-si, Gyeonggi, which was the first to adopt the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation textbooks, is reportedly planning to redo the textbook selection process.