LAHORE: Punjab Curriculum and Textbook Board (PCTB) on Thursday banned 100 textbooks it found to be “against” the two nation theory, or deemed “unethical and illegal”.

PCTB Managing Director Rai Manzoor Nasir addressing a press conference here said these books were being taught in renowned private educational institutions.

He said around 10,000 books were recovered from these institutes and they were also further investigating the matter.

He said as many as 30 committees had been constituted for inspection of around 10,000 books recovered from these institutes, including those published by Oxford, Cambridge, Link International Pakistan, Paragon Books and 31 other publishers.

30 committees to review 10,000 other books

Mr Nasir said some of the books had not printed even the correct date of birth of founder of Pakistan Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah and national poet Allama Muhammad Iqbal, while some others contained “blasphemous material” against some religious personalities and wrong maps of Pakistan. Similarly, there were 36 districts of Punjab, but some of these books were still mentioning 35 districts of the province, he regretted.

He said the government won’t tolerate this type of material being taught to Pakistani children and would ban such books. “We will conduct complete inspection of these books within six months and will not allow these books and material against Islam and Pakistan [to be taught],” he said.

UET: A meeting of the Teaching Staff Association University of Engineering and Technology Lahore was held at the UET on Thursday.

The meeting was presided over by TSA President Dr Fahim Gohar Awan, who expressed concern over not conducting financial audit and not holding syndicate elections by the UET administration.

He deplored that the UET administration had been ignoring the association’s long-standing demand for a third-party audit of the UET for the last 10 years.

“We appreciate the historic initiative of Punjab governor to remove bureaucratic hurdles to university cases files,” he said.

He said the varsity management should also be instructed to remove the obstacles in the application process regarding the problems of teachers and other employees.

“Despite passage of several weeks, the applicants are not informed of the decisions that generates negativism among teachers and employees,” he said, demanding 10-day response time for such applications.

Treasurer Dr Mustafa Habib, Social Secretary Dr Tanveer Qasim and Executive Member Dr Muhammad Yousuf were also present. Secretary Dr Amir Akhlaq, Vice President Dr Tariq Nawaz, Dr Waseem attended the meeting online.

Published in Dawn, July 24th, 2020