The High Court on Monday issued a rule against the changes brought in school textbooks.
The education secretary and chairman of National Curriculum and Textbook Board have been made respondent to this rule.
The rule directed the authorities concerned of the government to show causes why the changes in the syllabus should not be declared illegal.
The bench of Justice Naima Haider and Justice Abu Taher Mohammad Saifur Rahman came up with the rule following a writ petition filed by former vice chancellor of Jahangirnagar University Prof Anwar Hossain and curriculum expert Momtaz Jahan challenging the legality of bringing changes in the textbooks.
They submitted the petition last week saying that some write-ups of several well known authors including Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, Golam Mustafa, Humayun Azad and Sanaul Haque have been removed and some write-ups on religion have been included in the Bangla curriculum from class-II to Class –IX as per the demand of Hefazat-e Islam.
Such changes are illegal and unlawful, the petitioners said.
The primary and mass education ministry recently asked for an explanation from the National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB) for the numerous mistakes in this year’s textbooks.
“The ministry has issued a show cause notice to NCTB in this regard. We have asked the NCTB to explain to us why there were numerous mistakes in textbooks they printed this year.” Nazrul Islam Khan, additional secretary of the ministry of primary and mass education said.
The ministry was asked to give detail information and reason for making printing mistake.
Since the beginning of the year, dissatisfaction over the content and mistakes of textbooks printed by NCTB has been being expressed in social media.
After the textbook festival day, one after another ‘evidence’ of NCTB’s intentional changes to original texts coupled with numerous spelling and printing mistakes started surfacing in the social media.
In grade 1 textbook, a minor girl is seen saying, “O tey Orna Chai”, or I want a chest-scarf. The tendency behind choosing the word “Orna” for “O” has been termed as gender discriminatory in the social media.
On the other hand, in the Bangla textbook for grade 3, a very popular poem of 12 lines by Kusumkumari Das – “Adarsha Chele”, or the Exemplary Boy – appears in the textbook full of changed words and spelling mistakes. In a line, NCTB has supplanted half of the sentence with imaginary words.
In Hindu Religion and Moral Education textbook printed for the third grade, NCTB printed “Do not heart anybody”, instead of “Do not hurt anybody”.
An official from the ministry of education said, “The books have been distributed already, with mistakes in printing or editing. In next edition, it will be corrected.”
Source: The Daily Ittefaq
