What are the implications of the recent textbook fiasco? Will the changes in the textbooks foster an educational environment that promotes the analytical faculty of the mind, i.e. do we want youngsters to be able to think critically? Or have we decided for ourselves that select 'experts' are best disposed to dictate what can, and most importantly, what cannot, be taught to hundreds of thousands of students?

When asked about the blunders in the textbooks distributed by NCTB, eminent writer and academic Professor Syed Manzoorul Islam expresses disappointment about the changes: "It seems that some people have suddenly become 'experts' in deciding what is good for a child. For example, the juktakkhor (combined letters) has wrongly been dropped to make the spelling "easier" for children. Now, who takes such decisions? Where are the scientific and linguistic proofs that children can't master combined letters? Children have been taught how to use them for ages, why the sudden change and the unacceptable excuses? I believe children should be taught their mother language in all its form, even if some appear complex. There is no scope for experimentation in textbooks by people who are not real experts."

School textbooks are the first things that students encounter in an institutional setting and they are the basic foundation of their intellectual development. Along with the need to spare no efforts to make textbooks error-free, Professor Islam further states, "If textbooks don't have all the colours of life then reading becomes routine and the mind doesn't develop fully. In every country, textbooks are prepared with extreme care. Why can't the NCTB employ expert proof-readers, say from newspapers, who do a very fine job?"

More lamentable than the grammatical and illustrative errors, however, is the allegedly deliberate omission of some poems by Hindu and liberal poets—what can only be interpreted, to a logical mind, as the infusion of communalistic sentiments in the realm of education.

Professor Islam discusses the effects this may have on the development of the critical faculties of students and questions why the Hindu-Muslim divide, a vestige of the Pakistan era, is seemingly being revived: "The exclusion of works by some Hindu and liberal writers goes against the spirit of education. Ideally, education should create active people. This is a thought echoed by Emerson who said that a person who thinks is a proactive person—an active mind that questions, and believes in rationality. A child who is not given an authentic education grows up to become a truncated individual, not a fully developed one. Our rich literary canon has contributions of Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist authors and thinkers just as people of all religions fought side by side in our war of liberation. The omission of some writings by Hindu and liberal writers can be interpreted as the communalisation of education."

Many have claimed that this is a sign of the government surrendering to the demands of Hefazat-e-Islam and Bangladesh Awami Olema League—two groups who have previously asked that some poems and prose by Hindu and liberal writers be dropped from the curriculum. Professor Islam, who sees no proof of Hefazat or Olema League's involvement, asks why the government felt compelled to bring these changes. "I don't know why the government felt there should be changes all of a sudden. The responsibility lies with the Ministry of Education and NCTB. They alone can answer why these changes have been made. Hypothetically speaking, if the government did succumb to political pressure, then who is this political entity that is bigger than the government?"

"Some of the best minds of the country were involved in the process of compiling the books and the fact that they were not alerted about these changes points to high-handedness which is not acceptable. NCTB and the Ministry of Education should clarify who made these sudden changes and why. They must give us an explanation," reiterates Professor Islam.

That isn't where the lack of transparency stops. In addition to silence on the curious timing and reason for the changes, there is also a lack of clarity on who makes the final decision on what goes into these textbooks and what the review committee—set up by the NCTB to probe into the textbook errors—is doing.

"We don't know the terms of reference of the review committee. We don't know what exactly they are looking at — whether it's the grammatical errors, exclusion of selective writings or why editors were not made aware of the changes," says Professor Islam.

The writer is members of the Editorial team at The Daily Star.