The controversies primarily concern portrayal of North Korea and the description of the regime of the South Korean president and dictator Park Chung Hee.
The controversy's origins can be traced at least to 2013, when South Korea's Ministry of Education instructed publishers to revise their history textbooks.
[1][2][3][5][6][7] The conservatives rebuke that the current textbooks describe Park Chung-hee and his predecessor, Rhee Syng-man, in an excessively negative manner.
[8] Other controversial topics involve the framing of the pro-democratic protests against Park's regime,[3] or the inclusion of the story of Korean teenage heroine Yu Gwan-sun.
[9] Liberals had also criticized the action on the grounds that the government control over textbooks is limiting freedom of speech and spreading propaganda.