Eminent citizens demand withdrawal of textbooks
Education ministry on Tuesday punished yet another National Curriculum and Textbook Board official responsible for errors in textbooks amid a call of 85 eminent citizens to immediately withdraw all books with mistakes.
The eminent citizens in a joint statement also protested at dropping textbook contents of the renowned writers and poets and distortion of poem.
They also protested at inserting picture of the leader of political party at the back cover of textbook.
Admitting mistakes in the textbook, education minister Nurul Islam Nahid on the day said that people responsible for mistakes in the textbook would not be spared and assured that they would rectify the errors soon.
‘Actions will be taken after the ministry probe committee submits its report on errors in school textbooks,’ Nahid said while briefing reporters at his secretariat office.
He admitted that there were ‘some’ mistakes in the textbook and they took actions against two officials for the mistakes.
‘Following report of the probe committee, we will take further action and correct the mistakes,’ he said, adding that if needed they would send correction sheets, or take off the pages containing mistakes and then add them to the books.
He said, ‘Inadequate time for printing the primary text books may be a reason for the errors. We have to follow procedures and meet the criteria set by the multilateral lending agencies the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank before printing primary textbooks.’
Education ministry on Tuesday temporarily suspended NCTB artist cum designer Sujaul Abedin for his involvement in doing errors in textbook as a NCTB probe team primarily found his involvement in mistakes in textbook, said Subodh Chandra Dhali, deputy secretary of education ministry.
Education ministry on Monday made chief editor Pritish Kumar Sarkar and senior expert Lana Humaira Khan of National Curriculum and Textbook Board officers on special duty for their failure to check errors in textbooks.
The same day, the ministry had formed a three-member probe committee and on January 6 NCTB formed a probe committee to investigate the matter of errors in textbooks.
NCTB had distributed, around 36.21 crore textbooks free of cost among 4.26 crore primary and secondary level students.
New textbooks for Class I to V for school and madrassahs contain a photograph of prime minister Sheikh Hasina on the back cover in line with the recommendation of parliamentary standing committee of primary and mass education ministry.
Class III Hindu religion studies book contains a wrong moral instruction on its back page. It reads ‘do not heart anybody’, whereas it should have been ‘do not hurt anybody’.
In the Bangla book of the same class, the poem Adarsha Chhele by Kusumkumari Das has been reworded.
Besides, students claimed that they had spotted several misspelled Bangla words.
NCTB officials said that the travelogue Palamou by Sanjib Chandra Chattapadhyay, and poems Shuker Lagiya by Gyandas, Samay Gele Sadhan Hobe Na by Lalon, Amar Sangram by Bharat Chandra were dropped from the Bangla book of Class IX.
Also, poems Bandana by Shah Muhammad Sagir, Hamd by Syed Alaol, Bangabani by Abdul Hakim, Jibon Binimoy by Golam Mostofa were added to the book of Class IX.
The travelogue Ranchi Braman by S Wajed Ali was dropped from the Bangla book of Class VI while the travelogue Nil Nad O Pyramider Deshe by Syed Mujtaba Ali was added.
The short story Maru Bhaskar by Habibullah Bahar was added to the Class VII Bangla book, while Lalu by Sarat Chandra Chattapadhyay was dropped from it.
Language movement hero Ahmad Rafique, Dhaka University professor emeritus Serajul Islam Choudhury, cultural activists Kamal Lohani and Hasan Imam, academics Jatin Sarkar, Anu Muhammad, Hayat Mahmud, Sanat Kumar Saha, and Safiuddin Ahmed, writer Hasan Azizul Huq, cultural activists Nasiruddin Yousuff, Ramendu Majumdar, Mamunur Rashid along with others demanded punishment of the people responsible for the mistakes in the textbooks.
Writings of Rabindranath Tagore, Lalon Shah, Satyen Sen, Wajed Ali and Humayun Azad were dropped as part of conspiracy, said the statement signed by Kamal Lohani
‘This conspiracy may take a dangerous turn as it may spread religious fundamentalism in the country,’ the statement said.
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