Writers, editors not aware of changes in textbooks

Thirteen writers and editors of textbooks said on Wednesday that they were not aware of the changes made in the textbooks for the current academic year.
In a joint statement, 13 professors of universities who wrote and edited text books for secondary and primary students said that the debate over mistakes in the textbooks and changes of the contents might create misconception about the writers and editors.
‘We want to inform all including students and guardians that we did not know anything about changes in the textbooks,’ read the statement signed by Dhaka University Bangla teachers Syed Azizul Huq and Biswajit Ghosh.
The 13 professors include Hayat Mahmud, Niranjan Adhikari, Mahbubul Haque, Masudzzaman, Soiab Jibran, Shafiul Alam, Daniul Haque, Shyamoli Akbar, Nurjahan Begum, Rafique Ullah Khan and Soumitra Sekhar issued the statement.
They issued the statement when government continued drawing huge flaks for mistakes and changes in the textbooks for 2017 academic year 
They claimed that the National Curriculum and Textbook Board, yielding to pressure from radical Islamists, sowed sectarianism in the education system, through intentionally dropping secular humanist writings from the textbooks.
The board dropped texts authored by Rabindranath Tagore, Lalon Shah, Ranesh Dasgupta, Satyen Sen, S Wazed Ali and Humayun Azad from textbooks
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 for Class III, the poem Adarsha Chhele by Kusumkumari Das has been reworded. 
Besides, students claimed that they had spotted several misspelled Bangla words. 
The education ministry has so far punished three textbook board officials responsible for errors in textbooks. 
Earlier on January 10, 85 eminent citizens in a joint statement demanded immediate withdrawal of all textbooks with errors. They also protested at the drop of contents of renowned writers and poets and distortion of poem and insertion of picture of a political leader in the back cover of the textbooks.
Admitting mistakes in the textbooks, education minister Nurul Islam Nahid said that people responsible for mistakes would not be spared. He also assured that they would rectify the errors soon.
Two probe committees – one formed by the education ministry and another by the NCTB – are working to find out the reasons behind the anomalies and mistakes.

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