South Korea moves to expand modern history in middle school curriculum after Baejaego controversy

Amid growing concern over students' distorted historical awareness following the controversy over Baejaego High School's so-called "Starbucks mockery cheer," the National Education Commission has moved to expand the share of modern and contemporary history in middle school history courses.

The commission voted Thursday at its seventh plenary session at Government Complex Seoul to proceed with revisions to the 2022 revised curriculum for middle and high school history courses, as requested by the Ministry of Education.

The commission will now begin deliberation and voting on establishing and amending the national curriculum. If the plan is approved, the share of modern and contemporary history in middle school history courses will increase from the current 20 percent to 30 percent, effective 2030.

Earlier, the Ministry of Education had submitted a request to the commission covering three items: expanding the share of modern and contemporary history in middle school history courses from 20 percent to 30 percent; securing instructional time for the middle school social studies cluster — which encompasses social studies, history and ethics — and allowing schools to autonomously expand history instruction to at least 204 hours; and creating a new high school elective focused on criticism and analysis of history content.

The commission, which holds authority over establishing and revising the national curriculum, had discussed the matter at its sixth session but deferred a vote, determining that further deliberation was needed.

At Thursday's session, standing committee members voted 19 in favor, four against and three abstaining to approve the proposal to raise the modern and contemporary history share from 20 to 30 percent.

The commission said its monitoring panel also expressed broad support for the measure. Those in favor cited the controversy sparked by baseball team members at Seoul's Baejaego High School — the so-called "Starbucks mockery cheer" incident — and said there was a need to deepen students' understanding of Korea's modern and contemporary history.

National Education Commission Chair Cha Jeong-in said recent social controversy had been triggered by mockery and hate speech rooted in distorted historical awareness. "There are growing calls for proper education so that students can learn accurate historical facts and explore social phenomena," he said.

Cha added that he personally found the modern and contemporary history portion of middle school history textbooks too thin. "When you read it, it should be self-explanatory, but it falls short," he said. "The history issue has become a public concern, and it should have been corrected long ago. I think expanding the share of modern and contemporary history is very necessary."

However, the commission's expert committee said that while it agreed on the need for democratic citizenship education, opinion ran more against than in favor of expanding the share of modern and contemporary history.

The committee argued that pushing for revision while the 2022 revised curriculum has yet to be fully rolled out across all grade levels risks undermining the stability and credibility of the national curriculum, and that teachers already have the capacity to strengthen modern history education within the existing system.

Standing committee member Kim Ju-seong, who voted against the measure, said the 2022 revised curriculum was the product of hard work and consensus by the history education community under the previous administration. "If we change it now for various reasons, we cannot escape criticism that politics is at play — that history education changes whenever the government changes," he said.

On the proposed new high school elective, the commission reached a consensus vote to adopt an amended version that broadened the scope beyond the ministry's original proposal to cover criticism and analysis of content on both history and social phenomena.

The agenda item on securing instructional time for the middle school social studies cluster and expanding history hours to at least 204 hours was dropped without a vote.

At the sixth session as well, that item had drawn significant opposition on the grounds that it could reduce instructional time for other subjects.