US Sees Bias in South Korea Textbooks
US Sees Bias in South Korea Textbooks
The United States is trying to persuade South Korean educators to tone down anti-Americanism in textbooks, standardized tests and lessons in middle and high schools, the Washington Times reported yesterday.
Although anti-American sentiment, which reached a peak last year, is declining, the U.S. Embassy in Seoul is worried about how the United States is being presented in the classroom - and it intends to do something about it, according to the report.
"We are moving pretty aggressively on this," the newspaper quoted a senior U.S. diplomat here. "We are doing a survey to figure out how the United States is being portrayed in textbooks - primarily history books - and to see what the references and the omissions are. There are not a lot of references about the United States liberating Korea from the Japanese, for example."
Once the survey, which is in its initial stage, is concluded, the embassy plans to redirect some of its resources for public diplomacy to programs that would address the problem, the U.S. daily said.
It further reported that the embassy was particularly alarmed by a test that members of the Korean Teachers and Educational Workers` Union, an alternative union not recognized by the state, gave their students soon after the war in Iraq began in the spring.
"It's so anti-American, it's amazing," the senior diplomat said about the multiple-choice quiz, an English translation of which the embassy provided to the Washington Times.
The newspaper also said one of the questions, for example, includes the statement: "President Bush has officially cited several reasons for striking Iraq, but they have not been convincing enough for people around the world."
Anti-Americanism remains a serious concern among diplomats and common U.S. citizens here, even though a poll this week showed a dramatic decline in such feelings, which reached a peak last summer after two teenage girls were accidentally run over and killed by a U.S. armored vehicle participating in a training exercise, according to the report.