PTB told to stop printing unsavoury textbooks: Inquiry ordered
By Mansoor Malik
LAHORE, April 10: Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi has directed the Punjab Textbook Board to stop printing textbooks containing objectionable and unsavoury material and halt distribution of those printed already.
Presiding over a meeting that was attended among others by PTB chairperson Dr Fauzia Saleemi on Saturday, the chief minister took serious notice of inclusion of objectionable and unsavoury material in textbooks.
The CM directed the PTB to take immediate steps to expurgate all objectionable material from the textbooks prepared for various academic courses.
He also directed the education department to get the already distributed books corrected by schoolteachers.
The CM further directed the education department to formulate an inquiry committee to identify the people responsible for inclusion of such material in textbooks. He said the people responsible for inclusion of objectionable material and deletion of certain other material would be proceeded against.
He directed the education department that the inquiry committee must fix responsibility and submit its report within a week.
The meeting also decided that the words "Razi-Allah Tala Unho" and "Rehmat-Ullah Alaih" would be included in the textbooks after the names of Sahaba-i-Karam and other renowned personalities of Islamic history.
The chief minister refused to accept the explanation submitted by the PTB chairperson that the objectionable material was included after approval by the curriculum wing of the ministry of education. He said the PTB could not thus absolve itself of responsibility for inclusion of objectionable material in textbooks.
The Punjab Education Department had identified the objectionable material included in Class IX and X textbooks of Urdu, Islamiat and Pakistan Studies in a meeting presided over by education minister Mian Imran Masood on Friday. Besides the PTB chairperson and the secretary, senior educationists attended the meeting and identified the objectionable material.
The meeting, a follow-up of federal and provincial education ministers and secretaries' meeting presided over by the prime minister, also identified the material deleted from textbooks. The educationists also registered their observations about the text material related to Hazrat Umer and Ideology of Pakistan.Senior education department officials told Dawn that the objectionable textbooks were written and sent to ministry of education's curriculum wing under the supervision of the incumbent PTB chairperson. They said the meeting had concluded that the objectionable material must be removed from textbooks and the deleted material re-included.
They said the education department would now be required to send either a fresh draft of curriculum or the old curricula of Class-IX and X Urdu, Islamiat and Pakistan Studies for approval from the ministry of education.
The senior officials also told Dawn that the education department had constituted a coordination committee of the PTB and the University of Education headed by CM's adviser on education Sadia Shahzad Chaudhry to review the textbooks and find out if there was any objection material in the textbooks. They claimed that PTB chairperson Dr Saleemi had satisfied the committee by submitting certificates that the textbooks did not carry any objectionable material.
PTB chairperson Dr Fauzia Saleemi refused to comment on the issue.
The recently-posted Punjab education secretary, Shahid Rasheed, was also not available for comments.
Chief Minister ChaudhryPervaiz Elahi had denied inclusion of objectionable material in textbooks while talking to reporters after the Lahore College for Women University convocation a few days ago. Asking reporters to show him the textbooks containing objectionable material, the CM had even gone to the extent of saying that it was mere propaganda and people were trying to create an issue out of nothing.
