A team of government officials that will drive the production of state-designated Korean history textbooks for middle and high schools has officially launched operations.
 
The Education Ministry said a regulation on the team's formation and operation was proclaimed and put into effect Friday.
 
The ministry said a group supporting history education, which had expanded its operations temporarily, launched officially as the "team on normalizing history education." 
 
The team will be led by the head of the Education Ministry’s School Policy Office and will be made up of some 20 people, including employees of the Education Ministry, agencies under the Education Ministry, city and provincial education offices, the Foreign Ministry as well as the Culture, Sports and Tourism Ministry.
 
The team will operate until next May and will be charged with not only supporting efforts to develop single-standardized history textbooks but also with the formation and operation of a compilation committee that will deliberate on the new books. The team will also devise training programs for teachers.