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President Park’s approval rating hits 11-week low over textbooks row

November 13, 2015

SEOUL (Yonhap) — President Park Geun-hye’s job approval rating fell to an 11-week low over the controversy surrounding the government’s decision to reintroduce state history textbooks, a poll showed Friday.

The survey by Gallup Korea showed 40 percent approved of what Park is doing, down 1 percentage point from a week earlier.

Those who had a negative view of Park’s job performance came to 48 percent, also down 1 percentage point from a week earlier.

This week’s approval rating hit the lowest level since the government announced on Nov. 6 its decision to reintroduce state-authored history textbooks for middle and high school students.

The public has been debating the pros and cons of the government’s decision to revise the current textbook publication system. Earlier this week, the government announced its final decision to require South Korea’s secondary school students to learn Korean history only with national textbooks starting in the 2017 school year.

The survey was conducted on 1,012 adults between Tuesday and Thursday, and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.