ⓒYONHAP News

Textbooks to be used at Japanese high schools from next year have dropped the expression of "forced recruitment" of Korean laborers during the colonial period. 

Japan's education ministry announced on Tuesday that 239 textbooks have passed deliberations to be used by high school sophomores and seniors.

The deletion of references was during a government screening of school texts, with other words such as "mobilization" or "conscription" used instead.

The term "wartime comfort women" has also disappeared under an apparent tacit ban by Tokyo.

Meanwhile the textbooks include stronger territorial claims to Korea's Dokdo islets describing Dokdo as "Japanese territory illegally occupied by Korea."

Publishers who made vague references to the Japanese claim of Dokdo were reportedly asked by the government to make assertive revisions.