The Education Ministry has instructed schools nationwide to strengthen education on the 1950-53 Korean War, municipal and provincial education offices said Wednesday.

The move follows controversy over students’ knowledge of history, as a recent survey by the Ministry of Security and Public Administration found that 53 percent of 1,000 students failed to answer what year the war broke out.

In a separate survey of 506 high school students nationwide by the local daily Seoul Shinmun, seven out of 10 respondents said South Korea invaded North Korea to start the war.

Many, however, argued that the result was likely caused by confusion over the definition of “bukchim,” meaning an invasion of the North by the South, with students mistaking it to mean the war was started by the North and selecting it as their answer.

In its official document sent to primary and secondary schools across the country on Monday, the education ministry instructed teachers to let students know when the war began, who initiated it and who is responsible for the tragedy.

The ministry also sent an excerpt from textbooks about the war as reference material, advising the schools to teach students the exact meaning of the confusing word in an easy and clear fashion, according to the officials.

On June 25, 1950, tank-led communist troops surged into the South in massive numbers starting the conflict. The war ended three years later in a cease-fire, not a formal peace treaty, leaving the Korean Peninsula technically still at war. (Yonhap News)