By Park Si-soo
Korean history will become a mandatory subject for high school students from next year, the education ministry said Friday.
The upgrade from an optional to mandatory subject came amid growing demands from historians and civic groups that students must take history.
The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology has been under fire for making the subject optional in 2009 in the name of easing academic burdens of high school students.
Its decision comes three weeks after Japanese education authorities endorsed samples of middle school history textbooks that portray Dokdo Island as its territory, the latest in a series of its provocations of South Korea’s sovereignty over the easternmost island.
Education Minister Lee Ju-ho said that the education of history must be bolstered in order to better react to moves by Japan and China to distort Korean history.
“We need to improve history education to make students feel proud of our history and culture,” Lee said at a press briefing. “History textbooks will be modified to highlight positive and future-oriented aspects of our history and enhance correlation with world history.”
Those who enter high schools next year will be the first students affected by the policy. They will be required to study the subject for 85 hours until graduation. Korean history is the first subject to be reinstated among subjects made optional in the 2009 education reformation.
It will also be included in a state-administrated exam to recruit public officials, including teachers, from next year.
“If teachers do not have a basic knowledge of history, the efficacy of history education will be limited,” Lee said.
Applicants for the state exam to obtain a teacher’s license will be expected to take a history exam as early as next year.