The government has directed the National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB) authorities to withdraw two textbooks of grades VI and VII amid controversy.
The books, “Onushandhani Paath” and “Onushiloni Paath”, were prepared for the 2023 academic year.
The government took the decision following a meeting with the curriculum apex body and subject specialists on Thursday night. Following the meeting, the NCTB issued a notification on Friday.
The notice states that necessary revisions will be made in some chapters of the history and social science books. Nevertheless, the rest of the chapters in the books can still be taught to students.
However, the study of other chapters of the books will continue. The educational institutions will soon be informed about the corrections.
Thursday's meeting was chaired by Education Minister Dr Dipu Moni while Deputy Minister for Education Barrister Mohibul Hasan Nowfel and Secondary and Higher Secondary division Secretary Solaiman Khan, and book editor Mainul Islam were present there.
Wishing to remain anonymous, officials who attended the meeting told Dhaka Tribune that the education minister asked for opinions on withdrawing the books. The meeting suggested that there would be no harm to student's academic activities if the books were withdrawn for the time being, as this is an experimental program.
"Following the government's instruction, we have issued the notice and some recommendations to concerned board authorities to prevent teaching students of grades VI and VII from some chapters of their history and social science books,” NCTB Chairman Md Farhadul Islam told Dhaka Tribune yesterday.
He further said: "The two books will no longer be revised or published this year."
However, the NCTB chairman said this year's academic activities would be completed with only one book, “Onushiloni Paath”, under History and Social Science for both classes.
On the decision to pull parts of the textbooks, Farhadul said the decision was taken based on feedback and suggestions from various platforms to ensure no scope for any controversy.
‘Read before you judge'
The education minister on Friday urged all to read the recently distributed textbooks and to judge those only after that.
"Religion is a sacred thing. Is it fair to spread falsehood about this? First, read the textbooks yourself, then judge," Dipu Moni said.
While talking about the criticisms of different textbooks, the education minister said: "Some are saying this should not be there or that should have been excluded. We have already said that the students of classes six and seven would get two new textbooks next year.”
“There are no anti-Islamic items in these books. We give priority to people's sentiments and respect that. Is it fair to spread falsehood regarding Islam? Never allow these things. Please keep one thing in mind, those who are the activists of Sheikh Hasina, will never do anything anti-Islam," she added.
Mistakes, wrong information
According to NCTB officials, the textbook curriculum body regularly works to find structural and factual errors, outdated information, as well as grammatical and spelling mistakes. However, educators continue to criticize the NCTB for not spotting some mistakes in textbooks over the years.
The class 6 English book for the academic year 2023 has many grammatical mistakes and spelling mistakes, while the history book has factual errors.
Moreover, allegations of plagiarism have been brought against the class VII science textbook writers, which say several parts of the book were directly copied from the National Geography website. However, it was later found that the information was taken from a research work published by PLOS Biology in 2011.
A chapter in the book, "Bangladesh History and World Civilization", of class 9 and 10 gives misleading information that the Pakistan Army carried out torture and destruction in Bangladesh from March 26 to December 16, 1971. The fact is that the Pakistan Army launched Operation Searchlight on the night of March 25 that year.
On January 17, the NCTB issued corrections to nine mistakes, including the aforementioned examples.
