AT a time when the rest of the country is worrying about how to protect our children from militants who have vowed to attack more educational institutions, the Jamaat-i-Islami appears unduly preoccupied with school textbooks that show people wearing trousers, girls in short sleeves and drawings of human body organs.

Such absurdities — especially the last, for what else would a biology textbook be expected to contain — would perhaps be easier to stomach had the party, which is a coalition partner of the ruling PTI in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, actually made some useful contribution towards the ongoing discussions on the best way to protect our educational institutions from terrorist threats.

Also read: JI points out ‘objectionable material’ in textbooks to govt

But thus far we have heard nothing very constructive from it as far as that conversation is concerned. Instead, there is a long list of what the JI, or at least its chapter in the province, considers objectionable that has already been submitted to the education department.

One wonders how this list has been received. Some reports suggest the list has been rejected.

At a time when the education department of the province, headed by a PTI minister, is striving to rebuild schools damaged by floods and protect other educational sites from terrorist attacks of the sort that KP has already witnessed, how exactly does the provincial government perceive this list?

Already the education department has tried to appease the JI, mainly by removing a chapter on Helen Keller — whose story is a ray of hope for the deaf and mute — which was a bizarre response.

Others have shied away from allowing the use of Malala Yousafzai’s book in higher education for fear of offending some with an extremist mindset.

One sincerely hopes that the education authorities will not now feel they have to indulge in further acts of appeasement, if, for instance, they are asked to rewrite science and history textbooks; and that the ruling party will prove equal to the task of imparting a sound education to the children of the province.

The provincial chief of the JI has pointed to an ‘agreement’ that he says his party has with the PTI on education matters in KP, and hopes that all issues will be settled ‘amicably’. It would be troubling if this meant giving in to demands that can only deal a lethal blow to all efforts to bring education back from the brink in KP.

Published in Dawn, February 9th, 2016