The Increase of Educational Opportunity In Korea under the Japanese Occupation: For Whom the Bell Told?

On October 11th, 1995, the minister of governmental administration, Japan, Dakami Eto tried to justify the Japanese occupation of Korea by saying, “ Japan did do some good things for Korea during the Japanese occupation, like building about 5000 schools . This is just one of the string of insistences that have been made frequently by the extreme-right Japanese politicians in Japan after the Independence of Korea in 1945 and is an example of the insistence that Japan s occupation had contributed to the modernization of Korea. And what makes his assertion distinct is the only fact that he used to support it was a specific reference to education, more specifically, the increase. of educational opportunity. This paper takes a close look at the reality and characteristics of the increase of educational opportunity in Korea under the Japanese occupation. To be more specific, we will ascertain the size and the agency that lead elementary school expansion under the Japanese occupation. Through this, we will reexamine the arguments for the justification of occupation, of which Eto s comment is but an example. We will also raise a few issues and questions related to the so-called “Colonial Modernization Theory”.