Teachers issue another statement against state-authored textbook

Korean Teachers and Education Workers’ Union members demand immediate cancellation of the government’s move for state-authored history textbooks, during a press conference at Cheonggye Plaza in central Seoul, Wednesday. / Yonhap

By Jhoo Dong-chan

More than 16,000 teachers have expressed their opposition to the government’s move for state-authored history textbooks, the second collective action by the Korean Teachers and Education Workers’ Union (KTU).

Despite the Ministry of Education’s threat to take disciplinary action against them, the unionized teachers pushed ahead with their plan to issue a second statement, Wednesday.

“The government is trying to distort our national history and destroy democracy with the state-compiled textbooks,” the KTU said during a press conference at Cheonggye Plaza in central Seoul.

“It is a dictatorial regime that makes history regress, makes education a slave to power, and ignores people’s desperate voices,” it said.

The union claimed that the government is attempting to manipulate the people’s historical consciousness and criminalize teachers who refuse to comply with the misguided policy. “It is a shame that our future generations will not be able to learn our true history and will be deprived of various viewpoints.”

A total of 16,318 teachers from 3,532 schools nationwide endorsed the second statement, while 21,379 teachers from 3,904 schools participated in signing the first statement on Oct. 29. The union said non-KTU members also took part, but did not say how many.

As with the first statement, the KTU disclosed the names of the participating teachers and their schools.

In a response to the first statement, the ministry previously filed a complaint against 84 KTU members who led the move to issue the statement, including union head Byun Seong-ho.

Under the law, public school teachers, who are civil servants, are prohibited from taking part in collective political action.

The ministry also asked regional educational offices to take disciplinary action against all teachers who endorsed the statement. The heads of regional education offices, not the ministry, have the sole authority to take disciplinary action against teachers.

Especially, it asked the offices to impose severe punishment, such as suspension of duty or dismissal, on 22 key KTU figures.

While the ministry asked them to take this action by Dec. 11, none of the 17 regional offices have taken any action yet.

Liberal-minded heads already expressed their refusal to punish the teachers, saying they expressed their opinions from their educational perspectives rather than being political or ideological. Conservative heads have yet to take any action against the teachers either.

The ministry said it is considering ordering them to carry out the punishments this week. It may even file suits with the prosecution against superintendents who keep refusing the order for dereliction of duty.

“If the superintendents keep refusing, we may go further to withhold administrative and financial support from them,” a ministry official said.

“We are also looking into the second statement of the KTU. If we conclude it is illegal, we’ll seek similar levels of punishment for those teachers as well,” he said.