SEOUL, Jan. 20 (Yonhap) -- The parliament's education committee on Friday passed a bill to ban state-authored textbooks amid the boycott from conservative parties.
The National Assembly Education, Culture, Sports & Tourism Committee approved the bill that bans the use of textbooks whose copyrights are held by the government.
The bill targets the Park Geun-hye government's plan to provide middle and high school students with state-authored history textbooks, which critics say is intended to imbue students with rightist views of the nation's modern history.
Liberals criticized it for glorifying the military dictatorship of Park Chung-hee, father of President Park Geun-hye, who seized power through a coup and ruled the country from 1961-1979.
The ruling Saenuri Party and its splinter Bareun Party walked out of the committee session before the bill was passed by the main opposition Democratic Party and the People's Party.
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