US State Department Criticizes South Korea Over State Approved Textbooks

Doesn’t the State Department have bigger priorities other than criticizing South Korea for what textbooks its government wants to use in its schools?  What would most Americans think if South Korea released a report criticizing the US for government for its No Child Left Behind and Common Core educational mandates?:

The Park Geun-hye administration’s plan for introducing state-issued history textbooks was singled out as a matter of concern in a US State Department human rights report.Section 2 on “Respect for Civil Liberties” in the department’s “2015 Human Rights Report” published on Apr. 13 included two new references to South Korea’s middle and high school history textbooks in an item on “Freedom of Speech and Press.”“In October the Ministry of Education announced plans to require middle and high schools to use only Korean history books authored by the government-affiliated National Institute of Korean History starting in the 2017 school year,” the report noted in a subsection on “Censorship or Content Restrictions.”

“This would end the right of schools, since 2010, to choose from a range of textbooks approved by the ministry,” the report continued.The textbook issue was mentioned again in another item on “Academic Freedom and Cultural Events” in the section on “Freedom of Speech and Press.”“There were no government restrictions specifically targeting academic freedom or cultural events. However, a government plan to end middle and high schools’ right to choose Korean history textbook [sic] raised concerns about academic freedom,” the report noted.  [Hankyoreh]

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